Book 2 – Page 35

[Carne]

This needs correction. We have seen exactly one battle that fell under Tram's responsibility - and he gloriously won. With minimal losses. This makes him a good commander in my eyes. All we know is that Tram likes the diplomatic way (by listening to his thoughts) - yet he is still a warlord. Heck, even Rambo wanted to live in peace...

He was facing units that were not even attempting victory. They were simply attempting a desperate strike to protect Wanda. Needless to say he won, and pointlessly endangered units that might help with that victory. And right now he is splitting up his archers and leadership from his heavies and infantry. He is pretty much asking for a few decrypted dwagons to croak every archer or perhaps every unit in the atrium. This isn't what I call a good strategy.

This mode of thought is only consistent when taken in the context of someone who knows there's a potential off-turn flight-to-ground falling exploit. Tram does know the yellows can take potshots, but that hardly puts his heavies and infantry at risk if they are, as far as his knowledge goes, secure in the off-turn-impenetrable Atrium. He fully believes that there are plenty of archers to take out the hex-bound GK flyers... and if the exploit didn't/doesn't exist, he'd probably be right.

[Altima]

Let's also not forget that one must completely annihilate a side. All a side has to do is take out the ruler and then any heirs. An alternative is to annihilate every city. After all, Jillian was an heir, but all the cities were sacked, so she effectively went barbarian.

It's possible that any side finds itself hard pressed will be gobbled up completely if they are defeated. What I mean to say is, let's say that Jetstone is taken out, which means all their units in the field will disband and their cities will go into stasis. Someone like Hagar may then launch their own assault onto the stasis'd cities, meaning the side entirely disappears with completely new borders drawn up.

[gazes_also]

No.
Stanley's Toolism is the belief that the Toolwielders are ordained by the Titans to rule the world and are entitled to stomp everyone who gets in their way. Wanda believes that Toolwielders are servants of fate and will bring the tools together, that's all. Toolism is a ploy to achieve that.
If she could have been told that Charlie was Jillian's partner, the opportunity to get in contact with the only other known toolwielder would have turned her. She has one tool, she has control over another, at some point she has to try to get close to Charlie to get influence over the third.

That's not really true. She believes that the rights and needs of the Tools and the importance of their mission supersedes the rights of everyone else. She would never abandon Stanley to join Charlie, because she knows that without her, Stanley would die. She would rather stay with him and leave Charlie to do his own thing until, such time, by his own Fate, he joined them. Wanda believes implicitly in the implacability of Fate. She knows that it can't be broken or denied.
"Charlie is an enigma, but he is attuned, and he will play out his part just as I have, and will. As a neutral non-Royal, let him stand aside and watch for now."

It doesn't matter what the non-Attuned do, in her eyes. She believes that inevitably Charlie will join her, and thus she has no incentive to join him if doing so betrays Stanley. Either way, there would be two Tools together, but at least this way the third is out there. Charlie's hostility doesn't matter to her because she knows that he will either change his mind or circumstances will force him to join her.

So yes. She does believe in Toolism. She may not care about conquering the world, but insofar as the belief that the attuned wielders of the Tools have been chosen by the Titans to perform some grand mission, and non-Tools cannot stand in their way, is Toolism, she is the alpha-Toolist.

Still no.
You must differentiate between the Archentools and the tool wielders, you use the term Tool for both or either when it suits you. Wanda views the toolwielders, including herself, as ultimately unimportant as people, only for the role they play in the coming together of the tools. Stanley's survival is the last of her concerns. Either the Titans will preserve him if he is still useful, if not another will take his place to fulfill the fate of the Archentools. If he does survive her influence over him will be easy enough to re-estblish even after a period of absence.
Remember she was having doubts as to whether she was still in the path of Fate or had lost her way. If the opportunity came to be captured by Charlie, do you not think she would see it as a sign from the Titans of the next step she was to take?
Toolism is something she cooked up to feed Stanley's ego and control him and help her fulfil her destiny. The notion of who is ordained to rule, Royal or Attuned is irrelevant to her.

[gazes_also]

This needs correction. We have seen exactly one battle that fell under Tram's responsibility - and he gloriously won. With minimal losses. This makes him a good commander in my eyes. All we know is that Tram likes the diplomatic way (by listening to his thoughts) - yet he is still a warlord. Heck, even Rambo wanted to live in peace...

He was facing units that were not even attempting victory. They were simply attempting a desperate strike to protect Wanda. Needless to say he won, and pointlessly endangered units that might help with that victory. And right now he is splitting up his archers and leadership from his heavies and infantry. He is pretty much asking for a few decrypted dwagons to croak every archer or perhaps every unit in the atrium. This isn't what I call a good strategy.

Can I just point out that the more convinced forumites are that something is absolutely going to happen, the less likely it is to occur in the comic...

[build6]

Question:

do new sides spontaneously (and I assume randomly) pop?

[ftl]

Question:

do new sides spontaneously (and I assume randomly) pop?

No.

Sides can be split off from existing sides - that seems to be possible. Ansom had intended to start a new Side at GK after conquering it. Ossomer threatened to start a new side on the ruins of Haggar. A Side requires a Capital Site, and those seem to be fixed. Barbarians do pop randomly, but they don't become Sides unless they get a Capital. (Jillian did not have a Side until she restarted FAQ at its old capital. )

[Dr Pepper]

Disagree.

Think Civ. Every side there starts as a single band of wanderers. They find likely spots, build their first cities, then set to exploiting resources, exploring, and fighting. One side, called initially the barbarians, never builds cities, though they do take them over whenever they can. Barbarians also continue to spontaneously appear in the empty parts of the world, whereas the other sides mainly appear at the beginning with ocassional replacement if too many get wiped out early. As the sides collectively take control of more and more of the world, the barbarians (later upgraded to guerillas) appear less and less often.

So my theory is this. In the begining, Erf is an empty sand table. Barbarians pop randomly, one at a time. They wander around, foraging, fighting if they run into each other, and collecting bonus shmuckers from the ocassional gem find. Shmuckers allow barbarians to pop followers, and become warlords. And whenever a warlord with sufficient money and a large enough band finds one of the special places they can build a city, whcih in turn will produce more money and units. And the warlord becomes an overlord and chief warlord at the same time. Also, the overlord can now designate a successor. After enough uninterrupted generations of that kind of succession, the lineage becomes noble and still later, royal.

Meanwhile, barbarians still pop, but have fewer opportunities to become full fledged sides since so much of the world is controlled, or at least patrolled, by existing sides and most of the easily found treasure has been scooped up.

When the Titans decide to clear the sand table, everything starts over, of course.

[splintermute]

Still no.
You must differentiate between the Archentools and the tool wielders, you use the term Tool for both or either when it suits you. Wanda views the toolwielders, including herself, as ultimately unimportant as people, only for the role they play in the coming together of the tools. Stanley's survival is the last of her concerns. Either the Titans will preserve him if he is still useful, if not another will take his place to fulfill the fate of the Archentools. If he does survive her influence over him will be easy enough to re-estblish even after a period of absence.
Remember she was having doubts as to whether she was still in the path of Fate or had lost her way. If the opportunity came to be captured by Charlie, do you not think she would see it as a sign from the Titans of the next step she was to take?
Toolism is something she cooked up to feed Stanley's ego and control him and help her fulfil her destiny. The notion of who is ordained to rule, Royal or Attuned is irrelevant to her.

She's not a Toolist insofar as she doesn't believe that the Attuned are destined to rule, but she is a Toolist insofar as she does give special relevance to attunement. The Attuned aren't unimportant, it's just that their desires are subsumed by the Arkentools, and they're the only ones who can carry out the will of the Arkentools - although she believes that the will of the Arkentools is just to be brought together, rather than to rule the world. If attunement was unimportant to her, she wouldn't have betrayed Faq just for the possibility of attunement, and she wouldn't be saving Charlie for last - she'd be willing to start a war with him just like she was willing to start a war with Jetstone, since both of them were powerful Arkentool-wielding sides. The only difference was that Jetstone was unattuned.

As it stands, Stanley and Charlie are the two most important people on Erf for her, because they're the ones who've been specifically chosen by the Arkentools.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

If the opportunity came to be captured by Charlie, do you not think she would see it as a sign from the Titans of the next step she was to take?

And Wanda may be confident enough in her loyalty to Fate to be assured that Charlie cannot turn her even if he captures her. She could join Charlie's side, but then "escape" back to Stanley when the time is right - perhaps simply by waltzing through the Magic Kingdom.

[ftl]

So my theory is this. In the begining, Erf is an empty sand table. Barbarians pop randomly, one at a time. They wander around, foraging, fighting if they run into each other, and collecting bonus shmuckers from the ocassional gem find. Shmuckers allow barbarians to pop followers, and become warlords.

This seems unlikely, since a Side already has to have cities to pop units. Jillian couldn't pop any new units while she was a barbarian, at best she could buy them from existing Sides. The exception being Natural Allies, which are opposite - they can make units from schmuckers via natural moneymancy. But they don't get to have cities.

And whenever a warlord with sufficient money and a large enough band finds one of the special places they can build a city, whcih in turn will produce more money and units. And the warlord becomes an overlord and chief warlord at the same time. Also, the overlord can now designate a successor. After enough uninterrupted generations of that kind of succession, the lineage becomes noble and still later, royal.

Based on what we've seen, that's not how Royalty works. Only Royal sides can pop Royals - all sides involved seem pretty convinced that there's no way for non-royals to become royal, and the mechanics Parson found out about say only Royals pop Royals.

Meanwhile, barbarians still pop, but have fewer opportunities to become full fledged sides since so much of the world is controlled, or at least patrolled, by existing sides and most of the easily found treasure has been scooped up.

When the Titans decide to clear the sand table, everything starts over, of course.

[Lamech]

So my theory is this. In the begining, Erf is an empty sand table. Barbarians pop randomly, one at a time. They wander around, foraging, fighting if they run into each other, and collecting bonus shmuckers from the ocassional gem find. Shmuckers allow barbarians to pop followers, and become warlords. And whenever a warlord with sufficient money and a large enough band finds one of the special places they can build a city, whcih in turn will produce more money and units. And the warlord becomes an overlord and chief warlord at the same time. Also, the overlord can now designate a successor. After enough uninterrupted generations of that kind of succession, the lineage becomes noble and still later, royal.

Good, but your forgeting the royals are supposedly placed directly by the titans to rule Erf and they come from lines of sucessors. If barbarians could become royals no one would care about royalty. (Except for the nurmerous advantages it seems to provide.) If Erf was a sand-table like you think then there wouldn't be any royals. Some sides almost certainly were placed at the start and didn't just randomly spawn. Also we have no indication barbarians can use Shmuchers to pop followers; I think thats unique to natural sides.

And Wanda may be confident enough in her loyalty to Fate to be assured that Charlie cannot turn her even if he captures her. She could join Charlie's side, but then "escape" back to Stanley when the time is right - perhaps simply by waltzing through the Magic Kingdom

While Wanda may have been lying she was willing to turn to Jillian if Jillian let her destroy Jetstone. Wanda thought that turning was acceptable.

[build6]

Hrm. I suppose new sides cannot possibly spontaneously pop if there's no new land for them to pop on - so I guess the real question is, is Erfworld a "known universe" where, like Earth, it's been fully circumnavigated etc. and so there's no scope for discovering new land masses etc., or is there a limit to the knowledge that the current players have of the territories around them?

Rob & gang haven't made any indications about this, have they?

(did I read somewhere about the royalty having been in charge "since creation"? Hrm, related question - do the existing sides have records that reach all the way back to The Beginning, such that there's no doubt about the Titans etc.? But if there aren't such records, then how on earth did they "forget" such info, if new sides do not spontaneously pop, i.e. every side has existed since the beginning, or forked off of from such sides?)

[Lamech]

if new sides do not spontaneously pop, i.e. every side has existed since the beginning, or forked off of from such sides?)

New sides DO pop. Ansom at first assumed that Jillian was one such side. They presumably don't pop with a city though. Just some units and if they are lucky enough to get a capital they get to be a full-fledged side.

[build6]

if new sides do not spontaneously pop, i.e. every side has existed since the beginning, or forked off of from such sides?)

New sides DO pop. Ansom at first assumed that Jillian was one such side. They presumably don't pop with a city though. Just some units and if they are lucky enough to get a capital they get to be a full-fledged side.

i see!

I'm still curious about whether they know "all the land there possibly is", though. heh we don't even know if Erfworld is a sphere, do we? (I assume not )

but if it's flat, then there must be an edge/rim... would that make the life of a "rim state" easier, i.e. there's at least one direction from which attacks cannot come

EDIT: I'm thinking the known characters in Erfworld don't know "all" of Erfworld, otherwise there ought to have been a mention of the limits of the world already (whether sphere or edged)? I mean, it would surely warrant a mention in Parson's Klog

[robak]

If the opportunity came to be captured by Charlie, do you not think she would see it as a sign from the Titans of the next step she was to take?

And Wanda may be confident enough in her loyalty to Fate to be assured that Charlie cannot turn her even if he captures her. She could join Charlie's side, but then "escape" back to Stanley when the time is right - perhaps simply by waltzing through the Magic Kingdom.

Somehow I got a feeling that Charlie doesn't have a portal to the MK. Or if he does (maybe he needs it to hire a turnamancer for Archon-production?), it is heavily guarded.

[Dr Pepper]

I still maintain my theory. Yes, we are told that royal only comes from royal, but remember, the erflings don't have full knowledge of how the world works and it could be that they think of the event of a side becoming royal as a miracle.

----------------------------------------------------------
Big Mac, Supreme Commander of Groov-O-Rama, was bursting with pride. From his position on top of the outer wall of his capital city, Nowsville, he could see a wispy shape forming down below. It was the new front gate, manifesting as Mean Green the Moneymancer converted shmuckers into production advancement. The shape wavered, darkened, and suddenly was real and solid-- a fitting structure for a city that had just gained another level. All around, the assembled Fruggers, Twisters, and Strollers were cheering, their voices automatically blending in 4 part harmony.

Their cheers and his pride were entirely justified. The Swell Tones had risen fast, from a tiny tribe of wandering dancefighters, to a respectable Side with 5 strong cities. And now, to ensure that this would continue, it was time for Big Mac to name his Heir, as he himself had been named by his predecessor, General Practice, as all 20 Supreme Commanders before had been named. Time to go to the conference room.

So. Which of his warlords was most worthy? Big Mac looked around the tavle. Colonel Boogie? Hans Jive? Bobbie Soktor? His musings were interupted by a flash of light at the far end of the room. Blinking away the after images, Mac could see an enormous chair had appeared there. No, not a chair-- a throne. Without a second thought, Mac went over and sat in it. Instantly he felt power running through him. There was something on his head. He reached and took it off. It was a crown! He put it back on and stood up. Everyone else stood up as well. And bowed to him! It was the gift of the Titans, he realized. Groov-O-Rama was now a Royal Side!

He signed for those assembled to stand up. Then he took a deep breath. "My loyal subjects", he began. The words seemed strange and awkward in his mouth. He tried again. "My loyal subjects!" Oh yes, that was better. He felt new instincts, new understandings of etiquette, stirring in the back of his mind. "My friends". Yes that was good, it didn't hurt to call your subjects your friends, it let them know you cared. "Today the Titans have created us anew. I am your king, Mac the First! And what came before no longer matters, for this is our true beginning, let our history show that." Indeed, the memories of everything that had happened before had gotten dark and fragmented. It seemed easier to believe that Groov-O-Rama had always been royal, and that he had always been royal.

Now what was it had been about to do? Oh yes, order the popping of a royal heir-- a big hunky warrior prince with strong cheekbones and a heroic chin.

[splintermute]

I still maintain my theory. Yes, we are told that royal only comes from royal, but remember, the erflings don't have full knowledge of how the world works and it could be that they think of the event of a side becoming royal as a miracle.

I disagree - Erflings may not have a complete understanding of how the world works, but they do have a historical record (GK had libraries). The records may just be an unhelpful list of high scores instead of actual useful battle reports, but presumably they reference historical battles, and probably collectively, if not individually, would allow one to trace the history of Erf sides back to the time of the Titans.

[gazes_also]

Somehow I got a feeling that Charlie doesn't have a portal to the MK. Or if he does (maybe he needs it to hire a turnamancer for Archon-production?), it is heavily guarded.

Charlie is known as an excellent employer in TMK, so it can safely be assumed that he has a portal. I've made this argument before that only aligned and casters hired by a side can pass through that side's portal and it is in the interests of TMK to enforce that rule absolutely to maintain it's neutrality. All portals may, in fact, be property of TMK and leased to the sides.

[splintermute]

Somehow I got a feeling that Charlie doesn't have a portal to the MK. Or if he does (maybe he needs it to hire a turnamancer for Archon-production?), it is heavily guarded.

Charlie is known as an excellent employer in TMK, so it can safely be assumed that he has a portal. I've made this argument before that only aligned and casters hired by a side can pass through that side's portal and it is in the interests of TMK to enforce that rule absolutely to maintain it's neutrality. All portals may, in fact, be property of TMK and leased to the sides.

I think casters can enter any portal, or maybe any allied portal, TO the Magic Kingdom, but I don't think they can take any portal FROM the MK other than portals belonging to their own side (otherwise portals become dangerous vulnerabilities in capitals, or just means of exploiting movement rules between allied sides). This is most likely an inherent property of portals, rather than something enforced by the MK, because where you have enforcement, you have the possibility of selective enforcement and loopholes. The only exception we've seen so far is Parson, who may or may not be a caster - we have no idea what he is, exactly - whereas Bea was destroyed by mere contact with the portal, rather than passing through and being blasted by MK security, which suggests that the regulation of who's allowed to pass through is inherent to the portals.

[robak]

There must be some exploitable game mechanic there