What would happen if...

[randint]

In the spirit of Parson's lateral thinking, I thought to list some questions that I'd like to test in Erfworld. I think some of you might jump up with obvious answers to some, I'm no Erfworld expert, but I thought these had non-obvious answers.

...if I let a floating object in a river, and the stream crossed into the next hex? (off my turn of course)
...okay, what if I dissolved something in the river stream then? (again, off turn)
...if I dug a deep enough hole on the hex boundary so that the soil from the next hex would fall over in this one? (Soil, after all isn't a side, and doesn't have a turn)
...if I stand with one foot in one hex, and one foot in the other hex when my turn ends?
...if arrows freeze on hex bounds, can I grab them and reposition them? Do arrows I fire freeze in my hex or the enemy's?
,,,if the frozen objects on hex bounds are immovable, but touchable, can I climb up them to reach higher ground?
...if frozen objects on the bounds are not touchable, could something valuable be frozen like that for a turn, preventing the enemy from obtaining it for another turn? (by say, throwing it across the bound)
...if I ran a string across another hex, could i still pull it when I'm in this one? (off turn, again)
...if off turn hex bounds act as immovable walls, could i use them as leverage to push against, say, a city gate, by some mechanical device?
...if all the space in a hex was filled, say by razor sharp spikes, where would a newly produced unit in that hex pop?

Tha'ss all i got for now. You guys have any more like this? I'm sure that with such unorthadox rules, there's ton of exploitation to be done.

[the_tick_rules]

In the spirit of Parson's lateral thinking, I thought to list some questions that I'd like to test in Erfworld. I think some of you might jump up with obvious answers to some, I'm no Erfworld expert, but I thought these had non-obvious answers.

...if I let a floating object in a river, and the stream crossed into the next hex? (I would think so. mundane things like notes can be passed. ansom's column did it way back in book 1)
...okay, what if I dissolved something in the river stream then? (I would think so. But i dunno if this would extend to attack like pouring acid in a river leading to a city)
...if I dug a deep enough hole on the hex boundary so that the soil from the next hex would fall over in this one? (Maybe, but then again who says the hex wall doesn't go underground. or someone would do something cheap like throw something over the top if one existed, bottom sounds like it'd need to be defended )
...if I stand with one foot in one hex, and one foot in the other hex when my turn ends? ( i doubt you could do that. crossing costs mp, if you had 0 you could not get that foot over. If you had mp left I'm guessing you'd need to make a choice or the hex wall might force you out.)
...if arrows freeze on hex bounds, can I grab them and reposition them? Do arrows I fire freeze in my hex or the enemy's? (they did freeze, so I don't see why you couldn't grab them.)
,,,if the frozen objects on hex bounds are immovable, but touchable, can I climb up them to reach higher ground? (you mean like shoot an arrow ladder. I suppose, but that'd dependent on the arrows being stuck into the wall in a weight bearing manner. we don't know how firmly they are held)
...if frozen objects on the bounds are not touchable, could something valuable be frozen like that for a turn, preventing the enemy from obtaining it for another turn? (they would have mp to go get it since it would be their turn. we know attacks freeze, maybe if that's not considered an attack it would roll and they could go get it to.)
...if I ran a string across another hex, could i still pull it when I'm in this one? (probably, like with the notes mundane stuff is apparently doable)
...if off turn hex bounds act as immovable walls, could i use them as leverage to push against, say, a city gate, by some mechanical device? (if you can get under it as I said above)
...if all the space in a hex was filled, say by razor sharp spikes, where would a newly produced unit in that hex pop? (maybe another hex?)

Tha'ss all i got for now. You guys have any more like this? I'm sure that with such unorthadox rules, there's ton of exploitation to be done.

sorry if i couldn't give more definate answers, but you're asking hypotheticals anyway.

[Sixty]

In the spirit of Parson's lateral thinking, I thought to list some questions that I'd like to test in Erfworld. I think some of you might jump up with obvious answers to some, I'm no Erfworld expert, but I thought these had non-obvious answers.

...if I let a floating object in a river, and the stream crossed into the next hex? (off my turn of course)
...okay, what if I dissolved something in the river stream then? (again, off turn)
...if I dug a deep enough hole on the hex boundary so that the soil from the next hex would fall over in this one? (Soil, after all isn't a side, and doesn't have a turn)
...if I stand with one foot in one hex, and one foot in the other hex when my turn ends?
...if arrows freeze on hex bounds, can I grab them and reposition them? Do arrows I fire freeze in my hex or the enemy's?
,,,if the frozen objects on hex bounds are immovable, but touchable, can I climb up them to reach higher ground?
...if frozen objects on the bounds are not touchable, could something valuable be frozen like that for a turn, preventing the enemy from obtaining it for another turn? (by say, throwing it across the bound)
...if I ran a string across another hex, could i still pull it when I'm in this one? (off turn, again)
...if off turn hex bounds act as immovable walls, could i use them as leverage to push against, say, a city gate, by some mechanical device?
...if all the space in a hex was filled, say by razor sharp spikes, where would a newly produced unit in that hex pop?

Tha'ss all i got for now. You guys have any more like this? I'm sure that with such unorthadox rules, there's ton of exploitation to be done.

Sounds fun! I like your questions, wanna take a stab at what I expect would happen. For the first three I bet the answer would be they would do what they normally would do in our world as seen via the gravity exploit of riding a dragon corpse down since gravity still works normally.

The being in two hexes at the end of turn is a good one, if I had to guess I would say it wouldn't cut you in half or anything since the hex boundary was described as a soft resistance and you would be pushed into whatever hex you were "more" in.

Going along with the idea of soft resistance the 3 frozen object in hex wall questions would probably be that a bit of force pulling on them would dislodge the arrows or whatever, they're still probably touchable, just sorta stuck in a wall. Depending how stuck MAYBE you could climb them if you were super light, like a marbit or something.

The string is a good question much like your being in two hexes question. I would lean towards being able to pull it assuming it wasn't dragging a unit across the boundary. Even then it would pull them up to the wall and then no further maybe?

Hmm, the walls give soft resistance but you can only push them so much probably, have a castle 2 feet from the hex and slowly climb the outside of it via pushing against the hex boundary? Could be interesting.

That's a funny situation to imagine. Do we even know where they pop? Is there a designated part of the hex they're supposed to pop in? Since units can pop in the wild it can't only be some special part of the city where all units pop.



My questions? Could several mounts be hooked up together to form a chariot? (Spidew chariot for Parson!) What happens to a unit part way through a portal when it gets deactivated? What would happen if Wanda decrypted a Tool user? If the portals are being generated under portal park by some device (as it looked when it showed Sizemore digging the tunnel) could they be dug up and manually moved? If the portal generators can be moved could they be taken back to Earth to provide a permanent gateway between the worlds?

[randint]

sorry if i couldn't give more definate answers, but you're asking hypotheticals anyway.

No problem, I wasn't looking for definite answers, I like thinking about this stuff - and discussing it.

Sounds fun! I like your questions, wanna take a stab at what I expect would happen.

Indeed it is fun. Actually, I'd love a game like Parson's, where you have to cheat to win, since most games are all about forbidding cheating. Anyway, got off topic.

Small things being able to defy hex boundaries at any given time (on or off turn) seems reasonable. We'd think that maybe if it affected the enemy in some way, it would count as an attack, thus be blocked. But I'm wondering, just how much does Erfworld enforce these rules.

Suppose that string we talked about, is hooked onto the pin of a granade-like device? Perhaps that would be too straight forward, and thus would be stopped. But what if the string was hooked onto a little plank that was holding back a small metal ball that in falling would take out the pin of the above granade? Would that be forbidden? Is that really directly causing an attack?

Floating bombs down the river, yeah, maybe it won't work. But. What if you were to float inactive bombs, that when travelling close to a flame you set up in the next hex, got lit and blew up there? Would that work?

What if i had placed an inert mass in the river in the other hex, and dumped an equally inert substance in the river. Catch is, when combined they'd become dangerous. Too direct?

The hex boundry being solid to beings trying to cross it also has uses, like you mentioned, possibly climbing a wall. Thing is, either you'd be able to, or you'll fall through the next hex. Hm, maybe it's incredibly slippery - that too has it's uses, I'd imagine.


Now, as to your questions, I too have some speculations as well!

Mounts as a chariot - hell yes! It would seem plausible, nothing is preventing it, i'd think. What would it be considered though? Spidews are heavies, but can go in tunnels, so would the chariot be able to?

Unit part way though a portal - maybe same thing as being in two hexes when end of turn happens. Maybe it pushes you in whichever side you're 'more' in. Or maybe it pushes you out of the magical kingdom.

Wanda decrypting an attuned user - hahaha, now i _want_ to see her do this to the Tool. We've seen all the memories are preseved, as well as all the abilities (for example, the decrypted archons). Though Parson expressed concern when Wanda wanted to kill and decrypt Jack (the only reason I've found to dislike her so far), whether or not he'd still be able to cast. Maybe the attunement is preserved too. But what is attunement? Is it like magic? Or is it like love (unexplainable by magic, in the eyes of Erfworlders).

Can portals be taken from the magic kingdom? hmm, we don't even know if Parson can go back to Earth, let alone a portal. But (as with a similiary named game), what if you took one portal through another? And then took it back through it's opposing end? It seems to me that maybe portals would be more fixed, and maybe the stuff underground is for the mere asthetic aspect.

Actually, this makes me wonder - why aren't there hexes in the magic kingdom? As far as I've seen - it's pretty much all one land, and things can move around regardless of whos turn it was. It would seem to approach the reality of Earth a little more. (btw, I just noticed that Jeftichew came from queen Bea's side) (pardon me if i misspell).
Maybe all the magic kingdom is one hex. I'd like to see Parson exploring it a little, and maybe figuring out a way to misuse it's unique nature (more so than he already is).

To clarify my first post, this isn't really a thread about concrete answews, this is more about us trying to break or bend the game rules, much in the way that Parson would have encouraged his players to do in his game. That's why a lot of my questions are related to attempting to kill the enemy off turn, and misuse the unique physics!

Keep them coming, I love this kind of speculation!

[MarbitChow]

...if I let a floating object in a river, and the stream crossed into the next hex? (off my turn of course)

Logically, a stream is just like a bow - it's pushing the object along, so the object would stop. Note that we don't have evidence that water in Erfworld actually moves from hex to hex: rivers could be like moats, with no current.

...okay, what if I dissolved something in the river stream then? (again, off turn)

Dissolving it turns it into trash. Trash disappears before the start of the next turn, if I remember correctly.

...if I dug a deep enough hole on the hex boundary so that the soil from the next hex would fall over in this one? (Soil, after all isn't a side, and doesn't have a turn)

Much like the arrow, the dirt probably stays suspended.

...if I stand with one foot in one hex, and one foot in the other hex when my turn ends?

No idea. It may be impossible to end the turn in such a state. It may also be that, once you touch a hex wall, it pulls you through to the other side, so you can't partially cross over. We know it exerts force to prevent you from crossing; it seems likely that it would be able to exert force to prevent you from not crossing also.

Note that this would be different than the portals. Since the portals do not require move to cross, they don't behave the same way as hex boundaries, so Jack's ability to partially cross a portal doesn't tell us anything about similar behavior at a hex boundary.

...if arrows freeze on hex bounds, can I grab them and reposition them? Do arrows I fire freeze in my hex or the enemy's?

They freeze in your hex if it's not your turn.

,,,if the frozen objects on hex bounds are immovable, but touchable, can I climb up them to reach higher ground?

Probably, as long as you don't try to cross the hex border.

...if off turn hex bounds act as immovable walls, could i use them as leverage to push against, say, a city gate, by some mechanical device?

Probably not. The city hexes we've seen so far have an area around the city, so any object that would be large enough to reach from the border to the gates would likely be very large. Siege engines that would do the same thing (battering ram, etc) would be much, much smaller. It may work, but it's not an effective use of resources.

Also keep in mind that most units would attack on their turn, so the hex border would not be impassable to them. They would typically either take the city that turn, or attempt to retreat to a safer position (away from the city defenses) if they failed.

...if all the space in a hex was filled, say by razor sharp spikes, where would a newly produced unit in that hex pop?

Razor-sharp spikes are likely defined as traps, so it's likely that they would pop on the spikes, triggering the trap.

I'll add a question to the list:
...Since we can see across hexes, can a visible laser penetrate the hex boundary off-turn?

[BLANDCorporatio]

This sounds like fun. SO here's some ideas. Grains of salt needed, as experiment and SCIENCE are needed to tell what the outcomes actually are. So the answers may sound like definite knowledge is assumed. That's just for concision. I don't actually know the answers for certain.

...if I let a floating object in a river, and the stream crossed into the next hex? (off my turn of course)

Ninjaed by MarbitChow: we have witnessed what should be a similar situation (arrows stopped by hex borders). SO there ya go.

...okay, what if I dissolved something in the river stream then? (again, off turn)

Same outcome. I'd disagree with MarbitChow's assessment that dissolving means turning to trash. It may well mean, "turn to trap", and that can have better lifespan.

...if I dug a deep enough hole on the hex boundary so that the soil from the next hex would fall over in this one? (Soil, after all isn't a side, and doesn't have a turn)

Neither are arrows. Ok, you control the arrows. Maybe someone else controls the hex- and they may be offturn themselves. Further, soil of any control status, or lack thereof, doesn't need to collapse if you tunnel verically down (likely to collapse yes, but not a given; so if it stays suspended by the hex border, unsurprising).

...if I stand with one foot in one hex, and one foot in the other hex when my turn ends?

You cannot cut photons. Oops, I meant, you cannot stop on a hex border, if Erfworld is anything like TBSes from Stupidworld. Simply put, you can only be at hex locations. "Hex borders" are not valid locations for you to exist at. Btw, "Portals" are different in the sense that you don't "stop" there: you can always go through a portal, or linger along the way- which just means your sphere of influence, things that can physically directly affect you and you them, are from 2 hexes, not one.

...if arrows freeze on hex bounds, can I grab them and reposition them? Do arrows I fire freeze in my hex or the enemy's?

Second part is your hex, so therefore you can grab them and the first part of the question makes sense. And you probably can reposition them. To a place where they'll stay when your turn comes, since all momentum was absorbed by the hex border.

,,,if the frozen objects on hex bounds are immovable, but touchable, can I climb up them to reach higher ground?

Presumably so. It worked for Kirk Douglas. No matter how high you climb though, there's still a hex border stopping you.

...if frozen objects on the bounds are not touchable, could something valuable be frozen like that for a turn, preventing the enemy from obtaining it for another turn? (by say, throwing it across the bound)

But they likely are touchable, even by off-turn sides.

...if I ran a string across another hex, could i still pull it when I'm in this one? (off turn, again)

Nope. "You cannot stop on a hex border", above: there is no way an object can exist in several hexes at once or on a hex border. Yes. A "road", or "building", or whatever else, doesn't need to be an "object" (movable) but may be just a (destroyable, maybe) "terrain fixture". Same goes for rivers, mountains etc.

...if off turn hex bounds act as immovable walls, could i use them as leverage to push against, say, a city gate, by some mechanical device?

Yes.

...if all the space in a hex was filled, say by razor sharp spikes, where would a newly produced unit in that hex pop?

Above the razors. There is no way to fill a hex, as the space extends infinitely upwards. Oh, you could try to fill it with an infinity of razor spikes, but infinities have a way to make room for more stuff, even when they're full.

...Since we can see across hexes, can a visible laser penetrate the hex boundary off-turn?

Ha-ha, good one. But no. Lasers don't work in Erfworld.

Alternatively, if Lasers working are needed in order for some pop culture references to work, then they would act like magic, which has spells that can cross hex borders off-turn. Most recent obvious example of a similar thing was the Flash (upskirts on the outskirts) across different city zones. Most famous example was an off-turn multi hex Dirtamancy trap. Most common and overlooked examples are Thinkamancy effects.

Small things being able to defy hex boundaries at any given time (on or off turn) seems reasonable.

Uhm, no it doesn't. And that's all we can say at the moment. If we feel generous about this "is not"/"is too" discussion, the evidence weakly supports my side. Small things (like arrows and Dwagon Breath) cannot cross hex borders off-turn.

Suppose that string we talked about

Cannot exist, as far as I can tell, so the rest is moot. But why bother with a string, when you could use magic to set off Dirtamancy traps from a distance? Magic can do anything.

Floating bombs down the river, yeah, maybe it won't work. But. What if you were to float inactive bombs

They'd stop at hex border.

Unit part way though a portal - maybe same thing as being in two hexes when end of turn happens. Maybe it pushes you in whichever side you're 'more' in. Or maybe it pushes you out of the magical kingdom.

Maybe it pushes you to one of the sides. By whatever, or no, rule. All of this to ensure that you end up in a definite hex, of course.

All I'm assuming in the above answers, btw, is a physics that ensures that at all times the state of the world is well defined, operating on a gridlike world similar to TBSs. I don't much care about hex borders being there to stop direct attacks. It is shown you can have off-turn attacks that hit targets outside of your hexes via magic.

Can portals be taken from the magic kingdom? hmm, we don't even know if Parson can go back to Earth, let alone a portal. But (as with a similiary named game), what if you took one portal through another? And then took it back through it's opposing end?

Nothing spectacular would happen. A "portal" is actually two things, A and B, such that if you enter one, you exit the other. Grabbing A and moving it around, through any and as many portals as you like, would result in it being at a certain definite location, from which you can portal to or from B.

Unless you attempt to take A through B. My guess is, the surfaces of the portal would not allow themselves to be pierced. A cannot pass through B.

To clarify my first post, this isn't really a thread about concrete answews, this is more about us trying to break or bend the game rules, much in the way that Parson would have encouraged his players to do in his game. That's why a lot of my questions are related to attempting to kill the enemy off turn, and misuse the unique physics!

The physics rules are not broken. Taking advantage of something is another thing. Also, we have not encountered situations where the physics "fail": unlike stupidworld TBSs, Parson's antics have not yet caused a kernel panic. Or this kind of thing, with which I've bored forumites here before:

Imagine you amass an army of 32767 Marbits. You stack them together, so that you can have them travel in a more compact form across hexes. You decide to split them in stacks of 8 later on, when they approach the target.

Your advisor tells you that one more Marbit has just popped, so you decide, why not, add this to your big Marbit mega-stack. After you add the Marbit, how many Marbits are in your Marbit Mega-stack?

Spoiler: show

-1

EDIT: did some polishing on a few answers to account for Jack.

[Selexor]

Though I don't have much to comment on most of these, I feel I can add my two cents on one of them:

...if arrows freeze on hex bounds, can I grab them and reposition them? Do arrows I fire freeze in my hex or the enemy's?

The thing we're forgetting here is that even though the arrow cannot move beyond the boundaries of the hex, it hasn't landed, been deflected, or struck a target. To an observer, the arrow appears motionless, but by Erfworld physics, the arrow is still technically "in motion". If you prefer, try thinking of a fired arrow as being like an armed mine, ready to trigger and damage whatever trips its trigger - be it striking a living unit, terrain, or an inanimate object. But an arrow suspended on the Hex boundary has not been triggered yet, its potential unfilled.
So, grabbing this arrow and trying to move it would probably have much the same effect as attempting to grab an arrow in flight, that being you now have a very sore hand. You'd simply "trigger" the arrow on yourself.

[MarbitChow]

Imagine you amass an army of 32767 Marbits. After you add the Marbit, how many Marbits are in your Marbit Mega-stack?

Spoiler: show

-1

Assuming that your army doesn't have an existing record contract, it's unsigned, so you'd need at least 65535 Marbits.

[randint]

Someone mentioned that Parson had found that you can pass small objects through hex bounds (like notes or wahtnot). That was the reasoning behind small things being able to pass through.

Lasers not working in Erfworld isn't determined, so there's hope yet

And that's actually a good point, because visibility of light means you can pass information across the whole hex, over to the next one almost instantly. (you can do that with someone talking over hex bounds too. Which reminds me, if sound carries over, it means vibration carries over, which means air stays in contact accross hex bounds. So, maybe have a rube-goldberg type setup that's triggered by some air blowing on it, placed right at the hex bound. Anyway.)

Information can still be passed, if you simply leave one small unit with some lightsource in a hex,and each unit signals over to the next when enemies show up. It's like an alert system, and might be useful, since battlefield intelligence can make or break a war.

Anyway, yeah, those are some possible answers. I'm not saying they're wrong, but I'd also imagine that some of that might have unexpected effects - for example, one could argue that if Erfworld's rules were so entirely strict, 'uncroaking' a mountain should've have done nothing. It didn't do nothing - it was the exact opposite of nothing. So the rules are probably designed to handle players who are used to following them, but leave certain loopholes, perhaps deliberately, open.

As for your comment about 32767 and 65535: nice try But:
If it's signed int, with 2 byte size (required to have 32767 as a max), it would overflow to -32768 when you add 1 (because most systems use the 2s compliment system of storing data). even without 2's compliment, it wouldn't quite overflow to -1, you'd have to define what system you're using for negatives.

If it's a unsigned int, 2 byte size (in order to have 65535 as the max, it would overflow to 0. This time straight binary counting up (FFFF + 1 = 10000 = 0000, truncated).
(sorry if this ruins the joke, but it's kind of my profession to know these things )

[BLANDCorporatio]

As for your comment about 32767 and 65535 {snip}

Indeed, correct, sorry. Actually, 65535 Marbits receiving one more Marbit recruit and turning into 0 Marbits would be a better joke. So, uhm, lets pretend we made that

Someone mentioned that Parson had found that you can pass small objects through hex bounds (like notes or wahtnot). That was the reasoning behind small things being able to pass through.

Please refresh my memory. When was that?

And that's actually a good point, because visibility of light means you can pass information across the whole hex, over to the next one almost instantly. (you can do that with someone talking over hex bounds too. Which reminds me, if sound carries over, it means vibration carries over, which means air stays in contact accross hex bounds. So, maybe have a rube-goldberg type setup that's triggered by some air blowing on it, placed right at the hex bound. Anyway.)

Again, that you can pass info is no surprise. Magic- specifically Thinkamancy- is all about that. Magic seems quite capable to have effects that ignore hex boundaries while off-turn. "Physical" stuff, less so.

[randint]

"the tick rules" originally posted it (See above 2nd post)
Also see this: http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/Hex

According to that small objects such as notes may pass hex bounds, only units cannot cross them.
There's a good chance that small objects crossing bounds may be exploitable, as I've mentioned before.

But to bring up another point that seems to have gone unnoticed - the Magical Kingdom seems to have no hexes as far as I can tell.
I'm wondering, can units pass through portals off their turn? That might have been covered somewhere, but if they can, it would make it a nifty way to bypass turn restrictions.

And hexes - the idea for what happens when digging dirt between them stems from the fact that the volcano trap thing affected multiple hexes at once - so perhaps indirect ground attacks can span multiple hexes. Casters can indeed cast off turn, though as mentioned, some attacks need enemies. But if you target the ground, you don't really need an enemy - using the ground just has the side effect of killing your enemy.

Anyway, another thing I've been thinking lately is how to misuse this asynchronous time between hexes - there's gotta be a way...

[MarbitChow]

According to that small objects such as notes may pass hex bounds, only units cannot cross them.
There's a good chance that small objects crossing bounds may be exploitable, as I've mentioned before.

It's also possible that passing objects requires willing participants on both sides - one to offer and one to accept.

I'm wondering, can units pass through portals off their turn? That might have been covered somewhere, but if they can, it would make it a nifty way to bypass turn restrictions.

Yes, they can. That's actually pretty central to everything that's going on in Book 2 right now. The hard copy of Book 1 expresses this concern as well.

[randint]

Yeah, I realized that I was really talking about what Parson is doing now. Which makes me wander what it takes to open a portal - a hit and run strike team of casters can cause a lot of trouble.

Then again, the magic kingdom inhabitants aren't gonna give up their place to let it become the base of operations of a warlord.

Though I wonder if, in breaknig things around Erfworld, Parson will break the magic kingdom in some way. That hippiemancer that talks to Seizemore (forgotten her name) might not realize what 'breaking things' really means.

OK, this thread is getting off topic, so, I'm forcing myself to come up with more questions.
- Could you use the 'touching the ground off turn counts as fall' as an attack move? Move into a hex, use some sort of dirtamancy trap to raise the ground, and get it up to flyer units before they can react? It would take some dirtamancy skill, but would still have a chance of croaking units with a simple move.
- Actually, does that rule apply to naturally flying units like the Vampires that just float off ground? Probably not, but may be worth a shot.
- So, casters can link up with other casters. Parson counts as a caster (at least in some cases), so what would happen if someone linked up with him?
- What about linking with the Tool wielding caster? The tools maybe already extend each school into other axis, but combining it with other schools of magic? For example, the dirt-a-mancy and decrypting units ... could they have decrypted the volcano?
- From what I read Charlie has a solid reputation as an employer in the Magic Kingdom. Does that mean there's a door that leads to his city there?
- Actually, since things can just pass through portals, regardless of turn, you don't even have to set step through, just roll some bombs (some sort of portable traps or something) in to the other side. Just time it right, and you've cleared a way through. Same for breaking in the magic kingdom i think. Maybe. I don't like those guys
- That spell that Jefftichew gave him (assuming is real) is read by someone from Erf? Would they be send to Earth? Though that prospect isn't really exciting. Maybe the spell won't do anything, or it'll poof them into non-existence. Then maybe it can be used to trick someone to read it?

Tha'ss all i got for now, and I'd love to hear more ideas too!

[Sixty]

I dunno if I buy the "it is impossible to end turn on the hex boundary" idea that Bland used. I have no doubt that it is a common CONVENTION of Erf that you do not do that, much like not using enemy portals but I dunno about it being impossible. Clearly units have to go over the territory in question (they don't just get to the boundary and then teleport a few feet to the other side) but do we have any evidence they are compelled to keep going once they begin to cross the hex boundary? Their move might go down the instant they touch the border, but are they pulled to the other side?

I can't think of an exploit off the top of my head unless you weren't sure which hex you would want to be in at the end of the turn and tried to stay in both so you could jump back into one when needed (assuming it doesn't kill you or push you into one hex or the other).

[BLANDCorporatio]

I dunno if I buy the "it is impossible to end turn on the hex boundary" idea that Bland used. I have no doubt that it is a common CONVENTION of Erf that you do not do that, much like not using enemy portals but I dunno about it being impossible.

To be fair, we don't know whether it is physical law or not, and I don't claim to know, for certain, any more than you do. That said, there are reasons why it being a physical law is more plausible.

Erfworld physics is similar to TBSs from Stupidworld. In (the majority of) said TBSs, assuming you use a grid of locations, then by definition your units can be "stationed" on one of them only. Transitions (moving from one hex to another) just look like a unit crosses a hex; actually it's in that hex, right up until it isn't and it's in the next one.

An interesting comparison are grid-based RTSs from Stupidworld that use grids. What happens there is that a unit starts in a hex, can move to another if that hex can accept it, is listed as affecting/being in both hexes at once for a while (try building over a moving peon in Warcraft to see this) then finally arrives in the new hex and is located there.

RTSs handle this differently so that the movement of a unit would behave the way it looks: if a unit is at the border of A and B, it should be in range of someone who can only strike B, or only strike A, for example. TBSs don't have that problem: any action that must be performed on, or by, the moving unit can wait until it's arrived at a definite location.

[sleepymancer]

Well, we know for certain that liquids and some projectiles (if indirectly fired, as in by nature/a trap) can cross hex boundaries... there are multiple references in the comic to this, but i think this page illustrates it happening best http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F137.jpg

As to dissolving items in water and them not being trash (or 'rubbish', as we say on my side of the pond), maybe you'd have to be a dirtamancer to dissolve an item and designate it as being in a 'changed state' rather than 'awaiting disposal'?

[Unclever title]

As for your comment about 32767 and 65535 {snip}

Indeed, correct, sorry. Actually, 65535 Marbits receiving one more Marbit recruit and turning into 0 marbits would be a better joke. So, uhm, lets pretend we made that

Well now, hold on a second there. As absurd as the idea is, because seriously stacks most likely have a maximum size, let's look at it a little more closely. What would happen to the 65536 marbits in this stack?

WARNING: Horrendously blatant speculation below.

Spoiler: show

What exactly happens when a unit joins a stack? They still exist as a unit, requiring upkeep and such, but bonuses get applied to their attack power, bonuses that max out at eight units in a stack, so the max stack bonus has a check to see if the stack number is greater than eight. So then the 65536 marbits still exist, require upkeep, and still be in that stack, but the stack number is 0, so they get no attack bonus, or worse they get a x0 multiplier and the attack of each unit in the stack goes to 0.

But what about detection? Is detection done based on individual units when those units are in a single stack? From a computational standpoint, it's a lot easier to just look at the stack number, thus rendering each of the marbits in the super stack completely undetectable when veiled! So then you'd have a perfect stealth stack.

Counterintuitively, with a precisely large enough army and a single foolamancer you could hide a massive number of units, perfectly. That army could be a single side, or a grand coalition or armies.

I'd consider this entirely impossible except for one key aspect. For a game breaking mechanic it makes the perfect pun.

It is, quite literally, a stack overflow.

However, unless you use decrypted units for this hidden overflow stack, the upkeep would be horrendous.

Further, adding units to this overflow stack could overwrite the units already in it. This probably wouldn't disband them though. Instead a unit overwritten from a stack would still be a part of that stack as they were never officially removed from it but also not a part of that stack because they are no longer in the stack. Confusing, and it would lead to 'glitches'. Stack bonuses, spells cast on the stack, and commands regarding the stack may or may not still apply to the overwritten unit.

It makes me wonder about other Erfworld memory leak possibilities.

WARNING: Impossible questions below:

Could a unit somehow be disbanded yet not disbanded, thus making a ghost unit or a unit still existing yet not entirely controlled by Erfworld mechanics anymore?
Could this be a way to free units from Erfworld's Titanic Tyranny? Could the magic kingdom be a hex lost in a memory leak, outside of Erf, yet inside it?
What other kinds of cracks might units fall into in Erfworld mechanics?

Back onto other things:

...if I stand with one foot in one hex, and one foot in the other hex when my turn ends?

If this is even a possible place to stand I can only think of three possibilities in order of descending likelihood.

1) You get 'pushed' into the hex you're moving into.
2) You get 'pushed' into the hex you're moving out of.
3) Frozen in space and time until your side's turn begins.

#s 1 and 2:
In the case where you're crossing a hex border at the very moment your turn ends it may not feel like an actual pushing force with time being relative to the hex you might just be given an extra moment to cross before your turn ends (#1) or, conversely, robbed of a moment and prevented passage (#2).

#3:
Hex barriers prevent units with 0 move from crossing the border. When the side's turn ends the move of all units goes down to 0. If a unit with 0 move tries to cross the hex border that unit gets pushed back. However, an arrow (not a unit and likely doesn't have a move stat) gets frozen in place when crossing off turn, only to pick up it's initial momentum on the start of your next turn. Effectively the arrow gets frozen in time. It makes sense that as time is relative to hexes that time might not exist between hexes, it certainly seems like space doesn't exist between them after all.

Then a unit's move stat is for his own good to prevent him from being attacked while frozen at the border off turn. Standing in place across a border as your turn ends could just nullify that defense and rob you of a good night's sleep. Not worth it in any case.

...if the frozen objects on hex bounds are immovable, but touchable, can I climb up them to reach higher ground?

Now I'm imagining late night twoll construction projects building scafolding on hex walls or large banners being nailed to hex boundaries to taunt your enemies with rude pictures, or hide your current forces in the hex from sight in lieu of a foolamancer. It might be a good way to hide traps just inside the hex border so that the enemy doesn't even have a chance to see them before a turn begins.

Just thought, two twoll teams on opposite sides of a hex barrier, could build structures using the hex wall as a support, then each half using the other half as support when the turn begins.

[Sieggy]

I could see shooting a hex wall full of arrows where they would be held until turn end, whereupon every arrow would resume its trajectory and velocity. If they were veiled, the resulting swarm of arrows would be devastating. You could put literally thousands of projectiles into motion, hold them, and release them all simultaneously the instant turn ended. I would NOT want to be on the receiving end of that . . .

However, given Parson's knowledge, consider this . . . GK is on a volcanic lake, and there should be no shortage of raw sulfur. He has Sizemore, a Dirtamancer, so should be able to produce large amounts of saltpeter from the cesspits, and carbon is a simple matter of making charcoal . . . A very logical innovation would be gunpowder, which would be as revolutionary on Erf as it was on Earth.

And given the falling exploit, I can see flights of Dwagon Bombers. Think about it . . . you have a Dwagon base beyond a days march (for the enemy ), so you could make as many bombing sorties per day as your Dwagons range allows. Say your Dwagons have a 36 move, the oppo army has a move (with siege) of 5, so with a 12 hex round trip, you could make 3 bombing runs a turn (high enough to be out of archery range, unless the enemy develops AA), and still not use any of the Dwagon's normal attacks . . . or drop loads and then dive for a follow-up attack. And still have your base beyond retaliation (except for high move units, and if they want to tangle with Dwagons defending their base, have fun with that . . .)

Or Gobwin sappers placing charges in mines under walls or hex boundaries.

[drachefly]

I'm not sure there is such a place as high enough to be out of archery range.

[Swodaems]

I'm not sure there is such a place as high enough to be out of archery range.

Maybe, but I think there is such a thing as far enough away to be out of effective archery range. (At least in a horizontal sense, if height truely does not matter.)

This evidenced in several place, a few of which I've linked below.
Jack thinks that moving the flyers would determine which archers could hit them.
Pierce says that clearing the flyers from the air will require moving at least some of the archers off of the outer wall.
In this fight, Artemis closes in for what the text describes as a close range shot at Sylvia. This description doesn't make sense if distance has no effect on either accuracy or power. (It also doesn't make sense from a tactical perspective, but no one said Artemis was smart.)

Judging from those texts, I think there is a maximum range for archery, expressable as either the complex xyz function it would be here or as a maximum horizontal distance from target. It could also be a unit in x zone can hit anything in y zone(s) kind of rule, but that would make for some very unusual actions in that case. (If every archers deployed on the city wall can hit anything in airspace over the city wall, that means an archer on the oppisite side of the city from the target would be able to hit a target an archer on the garison could not.)