Book 2 – Page 16

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

Size does not matter. It's what you do with it that counts.

Bigger and less numerous almost always implies stronger. Heavies, bosses, etc.

A pine 2X2 is a better weapon in a street fight than a 0.45 automatic pistol.
A cement truck is a better combat vehicle than an M2 Bradley.
A dirigible is a vastly superior attack aircraft relative to cobra helicopters.
A 747 is a better air superiority/strike fighter than the F16. In addition to size, the 747 has longer range, more payload, and longer sustained flight time.
A young man trying to hook up should leave the Porsche at home and cruise in a 1990's school bus. Aside from all the obvious advantageous of the bus, it also has enough room in back to fit all of the babes.
Obviously since megalowiffs are drawn bigger they must be better in combat.

We know Gwiffons are marshmallow [or some sort of gelatin/sugar]. If megalowiffs are similar to Gwiffons then we have no reason to believe the dwagons have less mass. Real world gummy worms and gummy bears are much higher density that peeps.

I'm also not sure if the dwagons we see in book two are gummy or plush toy. Maybe a tool that bought the plush toys could give us a relative density.

[Nows7]

Size does not matter. It's what you do with it that counts.

Bigger and less numerous almost always implies stronger. Heavies, bosses, etc.

A young man trying to hook up should leave the Porsche at home and cruise in a 1990's school bus. Aside from all the obvious advantageous of the bus, it also has enough room in back to fit all of the babes.
Obviously since megalowiffs are drawn bigger they must be better in combat.

I think the "bigger and more rare" was an appeal to verious RTS tropes, which does not apply IRL... but as a thought experiment it does produce LOL's.

If you need to keep some papers together, a staple is worse than a world class sumo.

Why write with a common pencil when you can use an orbital death ray to etch a note into a mountain side? Actually why WOULD you use a pencil when you can use an orbital death ray to etch a note into a mountain side?

[Moik]

As Jackie Chan and Jason Statham have proven, the best weapons in a street fight are ladders and firehoses.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Well, we saw the "normal" gwiffons in combat in Book 1. They bit. As for Scone's capture, that doesn't seem to be a normal attack, but rather something special she was doing to capture a Level 6 warlord.

True, though I have always seen them as distinct units, so Megalogwiffs could do different things from the Gwiffons.

Plus Jillian also mentioned the megalogwiff planting itself on the other city's lone knight, whose head she then lopped off. At the very least Megalogwiffs seem rather good at incapacitating people on the ground using their bodies.

I *very* much doubt this. If it were practical for Jetstone to pop Gwiffons and Megas, Ansom surely would have used them in Book 1. Instead, RCC had to rely entirely on Vinny (bats) and Jillian (gwiffons and orlys).

Jillian was a barbarian then though. She couldn't pop anything (the Gwiffons she had we simply the last units she had from Faq). I guess the only reason Faq pops the same units it did before is because the ruins weren't rebuilt by a side with a capital. If Caesar had reclaimed the Faq cities they'd be popping bats and goyles and thunderbirds.

It has NEVER been stated that Dwagon popping is a power granted by the hammer, nor that dwagons are exclusive to GK
it is very possible that Gk was able to pop dwagons before Stanely found the hammer and that other sides in erfworld can pop dwagons aswell

True. Although we know the RCCI took all of GK cities, some of which were presumably able to pop dwagons. If it wasn't the effect of Stanley's hammer that allows that then they must either have razed them and rebuilt them, thus getting access to the same types of troops as their capitals, or they left the old cities as they were but decided not to pop some dwagons of their own. Maybe they did try but didn't have time. Or despite being powerful heavy flyers dwagons wouldn't be acceptable to the image the RCCI sides.

And granted, you might not want to send dwagons in against Stanley.

Can someone point out the update with Duncan, please? I do not remember this guy.

http://www.erfworld.com/2009/10/summer-updates-049/

He is also mentioned in the recent text update dealing with Jillian's trip to Spacerock.

[DoctorJest]

Size does not matter. It's what you do with it that counts.

Bigger and less numerous almost always implies stronger. Heavies, bosses, etc.

A pine 2X2 is a better weapon in a street fight than a 0.45 automatic pistol.
A cement truck is a better combat vehicle than an M2 Bradley.
A dirigible is a vastly superior attack aircraft relative to cobra helicopters.
A 747 is a better air superiority/strike fighter than the F16. In addition to size, the 747 has longer range, more payload, and longer sustained flight time.
A young man trying to hook up should leave the Porsche at home and cruise in a 1990's school bus. Aside from all the obvious advantageous of the bus, it also has enough room in back to fit all of the babes.
Obviously since megalowiffs are drawn bigger they must be better in combat.

We know Gwiffons are marshmallow [or some sort of gelatin/sugar]. If megalowiffs are similar to Gwiffons then we have no reason to believe the dwagons have less mass. Real world gummy worms and gummy bears are much higher density that peeps.

I'm also not sure if the dwagons we see in book two are gummy or plush toy. Maybe a tool that bought the plush toys could give us a relative density.

Please, please, please stop trying to apply real world logic to Erfworld. It has been clear since very early on in book one that the physics of the world are much more dependent on the logic of turn-based (and to some degree RTS) games, NOT TO THE REAL WORLD. Generally, in most such games, the larger the unit, the more powerful it is. Given the choice between real world logic and game logic, the game logic has much greater weight when it comes to Erfworld.

[DoctorJest]

True. Although we know the RCCI took all of GK cities, some of which were presumably able to pop dwagons. If it wasn't the effect of Stanley's hammer that allows that then they must either have razed them and rebuilt them, thus getting access to the same types of troops as their capitals, or they left the old cities as they were but decided not to pop some dwagons of their own. Maybe they did try but didn't have time. Or despite being powerful heavy flyers dwagons wouldn't be acceptable to the image the RCCI sides..

The dwagons might be dependent on the side having the ability to pop them, not the city. There's plenty of precedent for that in TBS Games. For instance, in Medieval II Total War, I can cap a city and use it to produce standard infantry and the like using existing buildings the other side built, but only the HRE can pop Gothic Knights and only England can pop Longbowmen. Those are side-specific units, that even if you cap a city capable of producing them, you cannot produce them as your side doesn't possess that unit.

[fractal]

While it's true that Dwagons are an Arkenhammer-exclusive unit, they're actually pretty numerous in comparison to some other big-heavy units. 2-3 per turn is actually a fair amount more in comparison to, say Archons. Certainly more than Faq could make on a good turn.

2-3 per turn is not a good amount; it's a huge amount. The city of Gobwin Knob produces a dwagon maybe once every six turns? So if Stanley can (with appropriate scouting support) tame 2.5 per turn, then he is independently matching the production (if not the schmuckers income) of 15 level five cities. That's like two solid kingdoms, or one powerful empire, all by himself. It's definitely an exploit, even for the Hammer. Jetstone had the right idea, teaming up against him.

[Camouflage]

I've just signed up after some month' of lurking because I just got an idea about the Jillian/Wanda situation at hand (I hope I didn't miss anybody already coming up with that, but I probably did):
As far as I've seen, most people seem to expect it to end up in a fight (most likely) or with Jillian falling victim to her feelings for Wanda and turn to GK (less likely). I think there is another possible outcome, namely that Wanda might (try to) turn to Faq.

Think about it for a moment. Wanda's loyalty isn't about Stanley or GK, but primarily about fullfilling what she thinks is her destiny. The Decypted, as shown by that little episode with Wanda ordering Ansom to neglect his duty as GK's chief warlord (it would have been his duty to report Wanda's behaviour to Stanley), are only loyal to her, so she could use that army whereever she went. Until this point, GK was the only side giving her the opportunity to follow her destiny, as Stanley was both pretty amoral and easy to manipulate. Now, with Parson at Stanley's side questioning her decisions and Stanley's distrust of Wanda's dangerous new power thanks to the Arkenpliers (and his newfound regard for undecrypted underlings), she might come to think, that a newfound kingdom, lead by a warrior-queen who is devotely in love with her and romantically linked to one of her puppets might be a better, more secure base of operations for her conquest of destiny.

Sounds reasonable?

[Dancing Cthulhu]

The dwagons might be dependent on the side having the ability to pop them, not the city. There's plenty of precedent for that in TBS Games. For instance, in Medieval II Total War, I can cap a city and use it to produce standard infantry and the like using existing buildings the other side built, but only the HRE can pop Gothic Knights and only England can pop Longbowmen. Those are side-specific units, that even if you cap a city capable of producing them, you cannot produce them as your side doesn't possess that unit.

True, although that is the argument (or a version) - have GK cities always been able to pop Dwagons because they are GK cities (and therefore Dwagons would have been available under Saline one assumes, before Stanley got the hammer), or only because Stanley has the hammer, thus making their popping in his cities possible?

It would be interesting if sides had units only their cities could pop though, even if you captured one of those cities. It would be weird, I imagine, if someone captured a TV city and could pop bats or so forth, because they seem so quintessentially TV.

[MonteCristo]

True. Although we know the RCCI took all of GK cities, some of which were presumably able to pop dwagons. If it wasn't the effect of Stanley's hammer that allows that then they must either have razed them and rebuilt them, thus getting access to the same types of troops as their capitals, or they left the old cities as they were but decided not to pop some dwagons of their own. Maybe they did try but didn't have time. Or despite being powerful heavy flyers dwagons wouldn't be acceptable to the image the RCCI sides.

And granted, you might not want to send dwagons in against Stanley.

Ya it's very possible that Stanley's ability to tame dwagons is not limited to jut feral dwagons. If he were able to tame enemy dwagons aswell, that would be a nice way to run into a loosing battle. All in all, the rcc probably just chose to rely on unipegatuars, orlies and bats for their air force... though granted they should have ask TV for some dolls and skanks

It would be weird, I imagine, if someone captured a TV city and could pop bats or so forth, because they seem so quintessentially TV.

Well not really... i mean while they could pop bats, any warlords they pop from those cities would also be rather vampire like warlords... and thus they would be popping warlords to help fit the bat-like theme

[CorrTerek]

A pine 2X2 is a better weapon in a street fight than a 0.45 automatic pistol.
A cement truck is a better combat vehicle than an M2 Bradley.
A dirigible is a vastly superior attack aircraft relative to cobra helicopters.
A 747 is a better air superiority/strike fighter than the F16. In addition to size, the 747 has longer range, more payload, and longer sustained flight time.
A young man trying to hook up should leave the Porsche at home and cruise in a 1990's school bus. Aside from all the obvious advantageous of the bus, it also has enough room in back to fit all of the babes.
Obviously since megalowiffs are drawn bigger they must be better in combat.

You do realize that, with the exception of the dirigible, all of your examples are more numerous than their counterparts, right? They certainly don't fall under the range of what he was saying, namely that the larger and more rare a unit in a game is, the stronger it usually is.

[theseus2x]

Jillian was a barbarian then though. She couldn't pop anything (the Gwiffons she had we simply the last units she had from Faq). I guess the only reason Faq pops the same units it did before is because the ruins weren't rebuilt by a side with a capital. If Caesar had reclaimed the Faq cities they'd be popping bats and goyles and thunderbirds.

This is contradicted by Sizemore's Text Updates. When GK conquers a city, it still pops whatever it was popping before it was conquered. Sizemore needs to come in so it can pop Twolls and Dwagons and what have. Its implied that this is the norm.

Also : While Jillian didn't have a city at the time, I find it hard to believe that she still had so many units after getting captured so many times. Its my belief barbarian mercenaries have another way of replenishing troops. The only reason why she didn't have a Mega was because of the cost/upkeep.

[Watsit Hoohow]

Also : While Jillian didn't have a city at the time, I find it hard to believe that she still had so many units after getting captured so many times. Its my belief barbarian mercenaries have another way of replenishing troops. The only reason why she didn't have a Mega was because of the cost/upkeep.

Jillian wasn't necessarily leading a large number of troops when she was captured. The one time we saw her captured, the only Gwiffon she had with her was the one she was riding on. The rest was a number of Orlies provided by Jetstone. She could still have a fairly sizeable number of units if that was her rate of loss per capture. Especially since she was leading a force of Faq units (assumed to be quite a bit larger than 19 or so units) out on mercenary work when she became a barbarian.

Besides, she was able to maintain FOUR Megalos earlier (during that ill-fated mission that had her lose all of them). She might've been able to at least make and pay upkeep for ONE at some point. Yet it's stated she hasn't ridden once since she lost them all.

Barbarians generally aren't intended to be sustainable entities. For the most part, they're expendable neutral units that harass (or in some cases, help) established sides. They pop in the wild, so if one group of barbarians go, there's always another available to take their place. In that kind of setting, there really doesn't need to be a feature that allows Barbarians to pop new units into their group. They live, they die, they're replaced by the inevitable group that popped somewhere in hex-whatever... unless they claim a capital site or something.

[randomstar]

Lastly, I'm pretty much the only one here to expect Wanda to be Notwanda, and really just a decoy. Why would Jillian suspect a veil?

I highly doubt that it is a veiled unit posing as Wanda. For one thing, the veiled notWanda would have to be able to carry on a convincing conversation, and the veil doesn't seem to provide false conversation context. All veils we've seen have been purely visual, not audible. Veiled Bogroll said nothing, remember? Well, he said nothing until he croaked Anson. That should be a fair illustration of the limits of veiled units. Because if veiled units had an audible component to their deception there would have been no reason why Bogroll didn't carry out the deception with a suitably erudite speech while surrendering.

Remember the veil Jack cast when fighting Jillian and TVs at choke point? it was a dwagon with Stanley and Jack, a dwagon that Jillian grappled and slashed and her gwiffon munched, (really, a solid illusion?? strange, but maybe it's master class foolamancy in action) while Stanley&Jack talked (to Jillian, too) and flew away; jack also appeared to cast, while the power of the arkenhammer failed ("is that a ... walnut?").
It was a pretty detailed piece of veil, IMO. Given this, pretty much on the screen can be a veil.
In the end, Vinnie, discovered it was an illusion, but then Jack was far away and his concentration was on something else.

[ftl]

Remember the veil Jack cast when fighting Jillian and TVs at choke point? it was a dwagon with Stanley and Jack, a dwagon that Jillian grappled and slashed and her gwiffon munched, (really, a solid illusion?? strange, but maybe it's master class foolamancy in action) while Stanley&Jack talked (to Jillian, too) and flew away; jack also appeared to cast, while the power of the arkenhammer failed ("is that a ... walnut?").
It was a pretty detailed piece of veil, IMO. Given this, pretty much on the screen can be a veil.
In the end, Vinnie, discovered it was an illusion, but then Jack was far away and his concentration was on something else.

The power of the arkenhammer did not fail... I thought that he had smacked an orly (or gwiffin?) with the hammer and it turned into a walnut - the reverse of what it had done before, turn a walnut into a pidgeon. How is that failing? It smacked a unit and incapacitated it.

I'm not convinced that any of the things you mentioned were part of the veil - the way I understood it was that the dwagon got munched, didn't die, and then took off upwards, whereas jack made it look like it kept falling downwards. (Remember how the veil was discovered - by Vinnie walking up to the wounded dragon and poking it, and thus noticing that there wasn't anything solid there. Also, note the point in the comic where Jack casts the veil - it's when he says "crypsis", which is after the gwiffon munch and the fight in the sky. Every interaction before then, the dwagon feels solid; the next interaction after that, the dragon is just visible but not actually solid.)

[fractal]

I just realized, Slately completely dimissed Parson (admittedly, he doesn't know he exists). "The caster is the root of their power." "Strike down that Croakamancer, and Stanley will surely fall!" "She is everything!" Regardless of whether she needed to go for game balance reasons, I'd say that now she needs to go just so that Parson can prove that he is the deciding factor for Gobwin Knob, not Wanda.

[Sieggy]

Which raises the question of how Jillian was able to grab onto the belly of the Dwagon and gut shot him. If it was illusory, she should have simply grabbed air and commenced to falling . . . Unless there's an Erf mechanic a la Wile E. Coyote that gravity affects you only when you notice it . . .

[Moik]

D&D rules in at least 2nd Edition and up permitted Illusion-school spells to have a tangible form. In the Open License, anything Illusion (Shadow) is at least partially real. The upper level example is Simulacrum which uses snow and ice to give the illusion tangibility/mass/etc. Though, a more accurate example could be Shadow Conjuration which summons a 20%-strength version that is 100% strength to anyone who falls for it.

If Jack is the Foolamancer he's made out to be, he likely has some capacity to shift around or summon nearby material and sheath it in an illusion in that fashion.

[MonteCristo]

Which raises the question of how Jillian was able to grab onto the belly of the Dwagon and gut shot him. If it was illusory, she should have simply grabbed air and commenced to falling . . . Unless there's an Erf mechanic a la Wile E. Coyote that gravity affects you only when you notice it . . .

i think the dwagon was real at that moment...
http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F114.jpg
The way i see it, Jack created a bunch of fake bats... those are the bats we see in panel 3
Jillian stabs the real dwagon, and the gwiffen bites it's neck, but it did not actually die; for at the moment jack made the switch... the dead dwagon was an illusion and the real one mixed with that pack of fake bats... in panel 6, the pack of bats is where the real dwagon was... Stanely and Jack flying away was more foolamancy, they were really in the pack of fake bats with the dwagon that was again seen in panels 8 and 9... the "crypis" casting aswell was just for show to make it seem like they disappeared unmounted

[Llord_Droll]

though granted they should have ask TV for some dolls and skanks

Slately can't ask for Dolls and Skanks because they are garrison units.