Maldeus wrote:Are you serious? Are you paying attention at all? My point had to do with useful corpses which could be uncroaked vanishing, thus meaning they are no longer available for uncroaking. The existence of a bearskin rug doesn't change anything related to that (especially since bears appear to be ununcroakable).
Rob has decided that "useful" is determined by whether someone wants something specific at the moment it might de-pop, not that something is generally or potentially useful. You're trying to use a different definition of useful from Rob. So take it up with him. Argue to him that any corpse is useful, even if some individual doesn't want it specifically right now. I'm not going to debate that. That's how Erfworld operates.
But a useful thing that does nto de-pop is like a useful thing here. It does not cease to exist. It does cease to exist when an equivalent item in our world would be thrown in the trash.
That the game-like world will continue to operate like a game, where disbanding a unit causes it to vanish.
Squad Leader doesn't de-pop any units. They are injured, or die. Prove that Rob did not model soldier level combat mechanics on Squad Leader. You're thinking solely about games where "units" are made up of tens or hundreds of men, so a "unit" that disappears is not actually men disappearing, but merely a regimental loss of the organization of that group of men. The men themselves are theoretically used as replacements, and that minutiae is too low level fo such games.
Erfworld does not take place solely on the company level. It also takes place on the individual level, and in individual level games, there is no arbitrary disappearance of men. Squad Leader is the best example, of course. That's why I asked if I'm allowed to introduce my own games. I contend that individual level rules are not sourced from high level games where "units" are companies and armies, but from Squad Leader, where a "unit" is a single man.
So, like I said, are we using evidence to figure out what games to use as sources for rules, or picking whatever rules from our favorite games to invoke, and hope we're right?
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K wrote:Heheh... you really can't see yourself from a neutral perspective, can you? I'll let that stand all by itself. It doesn't do what you think it does.
That's how you deal with something obvious. Obvious things need absolutely no explanation.
I can't escape the feeling you simply can't figure out a good way to respond to that. My point stands. Either your entire participation in this debate was an elaborate trap, or else you invented an elaborate trap after the fact to make yourself appear like as an ingenius master of the Xanatos Gambit because someone got irritated with you.[/quote]
A trap? Well, yes. But you began this. You thew the first bait. You wanted me to play. Don't you remember? "I've no interest in hiding my disdain for your lack of logic any longer. This is little more than idiocy at this point, and I intend to treat it as such." Now how could I possibly pass up an opening like that? Someone has decided I lack logic, and am an idiot? Oh, the fun we'll have...
If there was any trap, you really baited and set it for yourself, and I merely ensured you stepped in it. Of course, you expected an easy mark. Arrogant people can't take being insulted, can they? All you have to do is keep at it, and they'll crack. They can't stand being questioned. And they are so convinced of their own superiority that it's easy to appear cleverer than they...
Didn't turn out to be so easy, though. I'm not reacting like an arrogant man should. I'm not taking up the gauntlet of a flame war like I should.
You have no evidence and know very little about me, therefore I see little reason to believe you know anything I do not. On top of that, you can't even keep track of what was said by me and what was said by others. Further, what I said I wasn't buying was that you planned this whole thing out. I never said anything about myself. And please don't go on about how I've said a lot of things about myself because of the way I'm acting. I know that. I meant literally.
Do you think it's important what your height, weight, income, age, or local facts are? Every time you post, you reveal how you think. Unless you are practiced at hiding and deceiving people into underestimating you, you are an open book. For most, that does not matter. But you want to play with me. You'd better have something more than the hand you're playing. Look at this last paragraph. You've called me "narcissistic" twice now, at least. Didn't work, did it? If it failed the first time, it won't work the second. Or the third. Or the fourth. That ploy fails, and yet you re-use it. Other attempts, like "insane" and "idiocy" also fail to get the desired result. So what do you know of how I think? Clearly you have misjudged me. I spoke of you losing, didn't I? Every time you insult me and fail to get a rise, you've failed and I've won. Every time I get to turn my cheek, you embarrass yourself. And you don't see it, because you cannot view your own posts from a third person perspective without prejudice.
Erfworld is a literal interpretation of a war game, which means that certain game rules may well be as hard-coded as the laws of physics. The exact nature of how Parson is capable of breaking the rules is, as of this moment, completely unknown to us. Whether or not he could teach other units to also break the rules is similarly unknown.
You will see what you want to see.
They disappear because that's what's most likely to happen in a war game. Are you paying attention?
So can I begin to insert rules from my favorite war games now? Or are only you allowed to do that? Or are we trying to figure out which game rules Rob implemented and which ones he didn't based on evidence?
That one game or many games implement a rule is not evidence Erfworld implements that rule.
Yes it is. War games follow certain conventions. Erfworld, being based very heavily off of war games, can therefore be expected to follow said conventions.
All war games are different. Not all include all the same rules. They take place over different time frames, different map sizes, and different unit sizes. Picking the war games that support your belief system is not proof of existence, when games at other levels and sizes have different rules entirely. Combat in erfworld takes place on the level of each individual soldier, not at the army level. Disbanding at the army level when applied to the individual level is oviously a mistake. Rules from a individual soldier level are more appropriate for the individual soldier.
If you want to assume the existence of a certain rule because most war games in existence follow it, I'm not going to stop you, primarily because you'd be hard-pressed to find one such rule that isn't already canon.
Squad Leader. One of the single most popular war games of all time. Action at the individual soldier level. Completely applicable to this game. And soldiers don't disappear in it, unless they die. They can be injured, break and run, surrender, etc. But they don't conveniently disappear.
K wrote:Regardless, admitting an error to feign humility so as to disguise one's arrogance isn't anything like actual humility, it's just clever. And a trick I learned when I was...Fifteen, actually. You haven't convinced me of anything and I'm not sure why you're trying. You're still trying to win, which means you're still in it to feed your ego.
Am I trying to win? Oh, I won long ago. You lose with every post, now. You just don't realize what you lose, because you're thinking of the wrong paradigm. This ceased being about the game rules long ago. I'm playing the meta-debate game now, and you're still thinking on the debate level. And, no, I am not winning anything anymore. Just watching you lose.
So I'm losing a game I'm not trying to win? Okay. I don't care.[/quote]
I know, more's the pity. Someday you will. I hope it doesn't hurt to much when it happens.
Arrogance is the other side of confidence. It's both a strength and a flaw and we both have it in the extreme, the difference being that I don't flaunt it.
Don't you? If you're arrogant, then you're not capable of accurately judging yourself. "making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud". Confidence stems from competence. Arrogance stems from belief in competence in areas where there is none. Most arrogant people are competent, but only inside their field: they treat that as evidence that they are superior in more than just that specialty, and embarrass themselves when they step outside their field into the specialty of an opponent. Arrogance does not mean stupid, but confidence does not mean competence either.
But what about a man that only appears to be arrogant, either by an accident of genetics or by being a superior actor? What happens if that man really is superior, either by stumbling into an area of expertise, or meeting a man that is simply better in general? What defenses need to be in place to prevent potential wretched results of such an accidental interaction?
You started this. I'm just in it for the lulz.
I was arguing with other people. I started nothing with you. Your opening volley included accusations of illogic and idiocy against me. How exactly did I start this?
It's true, I overlooked the fact that Saline (presumably) had other cities (it is possible, of course, that he didn't, and Stanley captured all ten of his other cities using his dwagons and the Arkenhammer, but I doubt it).
I doubt Saline would have loved Stanley so much if he'd never expanded GK past it's Capital, especially when he smashed Faq during Saline's reign. Saline would have been furious that Stanley didn't capture Faq's cities to provide him with his second.
You're now contending that Sizemore is an inaccurate source with no evidence.
How so? If he didn't go barbarian, all he knew before arriving at GK was that Stanley was now Ruler, so Saline had died. Everything else he learend after the fact and I treated as accurate. Is tere some statement he specifically makes that I'm claiming he lied about, or misrepresented?
You're contending that Stanley did not become a barbarian when, in fact, he might not have been a barbarian (I honestly have no idea whether or not the Side ended, because either could be expected of a war game).
Sizmore stated that Stanley as Heir prevented his Side from ending. Isn't that enough for you?
Parson: When the city fell, shouldn't you have disbanded?
Sizemore: Normally, yes. But the King was very fond of Stanley, so he did something that rarely happens. He promoted Stanley to Heir Designate, at great expense. That way, when the city fell it wasn't the end of our side.
This tells us a couple of things. First, the fall of the city is the end of the Side unless there is an Heir, even though Stanley has won lots of battles since finding the Arkenhammer (which is why Saline liked him so much), so they almost certainly have at least one other city. It is most likely, therefore, that fall of city=end of Side, unless the Ruler or Heir is out and about (or they become barbarians, possibly?).
In the case of no other city to make Capital, we know for certain a Ruler becomes a Barbarian.
I personally like the case of a Ruler visiting a non-Capital City when his Capital falls. A Barbarian capturing any city becomes a Side, but if the Ruler can't declare his city a Capital, then it goes Neutral with a Ruler-level unit inside. That's not going to fly with me without evidence. It gives a Barbarian Warlord a power that a Ruler would not have.
Now then, on to that second one. The phrasing of it suggests that the Plaid Tribe never ceased to exist at all, and thus they were never barbarians, however as the Ruler can leave the city at will (as Stanley does at the Battle for Gobwin Knob), then it begs the question as to why the Side ends if the city is taken and the Ruler lives on, but not if the Ruler is killed, the city taken, and the Heir survives. One of these two statements must have been a simplification. Either Sizemore meant that Saline promoted Stanley to Heir so that his Side would possibly continue after he died, if Stanley managed to take a city from whatever forces had captured it, or that Saline would never leave the city, thus the city being taken and the death of Saline would be more or less the same. I'm leaning towards the latter.
Saline can die without the city being taken. Assassination. A stray arrow on the practice range. A brick dropped by a unit onto Bogroll's umbrella bounces off onto his head. Accidents kill in Erfworld as much as they do on Earth. And units are not provably immortal. In fact, Transylvito's battle chant in the chokepoint trap suggests it's called "decay". Saline was white-haired and old. If he was set to decay, his side would end without an heir.
Ultimately the evidence is not as thoroughly conclusive as I might have hoped, but the way Parson says "shouldn't you have disbanded" is yet another instance where it's implied to be a death threat even outside of the threat of being hacked to pieces by Plaid units in Gobwin Knob. If disband=/=de-pop, it's probably because Rob is intentionally misleading us.
You're reading into it what you want. Disband might also be more along the lines of Neutral, instead of Barbarian. Sizemore, if desbanded, may have been restricted from leaving his hex like neutral units, in which case he would either starve to death when his purse ran out, or be captured by the first army to find him. Disbanding in that case would result in Sizemore not being in GK, except by a circuitous route with hopefully a good story behind it.
All this being said, Kreistor has bounced around from one failed argument to another in support of his pre-determined conclusion until he stumbled across one that actually made sense. I'm no longer amused by this, so I'm leaving this alone until I'm sufficiently bored to come back to it. Good-bye, all.
Ah, then I better go back and snip a couple things... done. I can save those tricks for another thread, where you again grossly underestimate me.
We try things. Sometimes they work.
