Book 2 – Text Updates 036

[danhaas]

Also, I find it interesting that Wanda's chance of surviving a fall is only 4/9.
Any other assumptions I made without consciously considering them first, feel free to point them out and laugh at my expense.

IF the MK portal on SR is in the courtyard, or the dungeon has no defense (fat chance, I know), Parson could go into the courtyard and use the dropped scroll to heal Wanda. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Arkenpliers could auto-decrypt Wanda.
Though I think Fate alone will be enough to tip the dices.

[effataigus]

Regarding the side question of how many Zombcano sites there are in the world, this update made me panic just a little:

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -07-16.png

Calderas or not, I agree that reusing the spell seems pretty unlikely for a number of reasons:

Storytelling
No other named croakamancers
No other named dirtamancers

... though I could see an eventuality where news of these events has spread far and wide, and all over Erfworld links start getting abused in a crescendo of horrible warfare. Three powerful casters is a steep price to pay, but if you could wipe out 7 hexes that contain, say, an invading army snaking their way through mountains...

I wouldn't be too surprised if news comes back that some distant no-name side set one off, but yeah, it won't be a major plot point.

[mortissimus]

Also, I find it interesting that Wanda's chance of surviving a fall is only 4/9. Explanation below:

Assumptions:
Chance of any of the 3 options occurring is exactly 1/3.

This assumption is against what we know.

with my bold:

When you fall, one of three things happen: you are injured (possibly only slightly), you are incapacitated (you croak in one turn if not given Healomancy), or you just croak. Height of the fall does seem to have some bearing on that, but it's essentially random. You can croak from like a three foot fall.

So we know that it varies but we do not know anything more than that. The chance of croaking from a three foot fall might be 1% or 50% or anything else, we only know that it is lower then the risk of croaking from a thirty foot fall.

[zilfallon]

mortis, you skipped the important part of trotsky's message in your quote.

There are 3 possibilities in a fall: Instant death, incapacitated or none. trosky made the calculation according to current situation, so he only counted being incapacitated as "Wanda survives" IF Jack is not croaked or incapacitated from his fall.

He didn't count it as "Wanda survives" when she's lying on ground unconcscious and Jack croaked next to her

[mortissimus]

My point is that assuming 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 as the probabilities goes against what we know, which is that the numbers depend on height. A three foot fall might have 7/9, 1/9, 1/9 or 2/9, 5/9, 2/9 or anything else.

Which quite changes any calculation.

[zilfallon]

Height of the fall does seem to have some bearing on that, but it's essentially random.

Personally i don't think this means that height is a factor big enough to completely double or triple a calculation or completely ruin one. It affects a bit, but essentially it's all random, is what this line says.

[Lamech]

Personally i don't think this means that height is a big factor. It affects a bit, but essentially it's all random, is what this line says

We say stuff is random all the time when probablities aren't equal. A square in a randomly generated game map might have a 30% chance 50% chance or 90% chance of being land.

Stanley left because Parson's plan failed, and a bunch of his warlords and dwagons were croaked, underscoring why he's not perfect. Parson decided to attack the siege units, overstretched, and lost all those dwagons. Even if Tram left they'd still have the archers and casters, for capital defence- to keep the analogy, he'd take the fliers, which can move fast. The king decides deployment of the casters.

Parson had 24 dwagons left in position to capture the pliers, croak Ansom, eliminate Jillian and her fliers and hit the siege. Parson's plan to save a few dwagons failed. He still could have eliminated Ansom, Jillian, took the pliers, and destroyed most of the siege. They had dwagons back in GK that he could have used to fly Wanda out and make three new (higher level probably) warlords to replace the ones lost.
Parson's plan to eliminate Ansom failed because Stanley ran off with the units he needed to destroy the enemy. If Tram ran off with the units he needed to destroy the enemy Kingworld would have failed too.

They hit enemy foes who were flying next to the top of the outer wall. They then couldn't assist him across hex boundries. You'd rely on them to hit casters inside the hex boundries at the last minute? Sounds unrealistic.

First hitting Casters at the last minute is exactly what those archons did. In GK Charlie had a bunch of forces in position to save the day and allow the coalition forces to overcome the GK forces. The coalition won because someone saved them. They did not win on their own power. Charlie could very easily have saved GK in this book, even with out forces that happened to be in the right spot. He could have told Sammy "end the turn right now or I destroy your kingdom." And then Kingworld would have failed. Charlie wouldn't have even needed threats since they want GK to attack, and then be there in time to take back the city.

Which shows how smart he is. Only partially countered, though, through a very risky and difficult plan. It will be touch and go.

Okay lets say there is a 50/50 chance of Parson winning. So when placed Kingworld is placed against a perfect warlords plan they are even. Now consider that Parson win or lose can make another plan. And another. And another. Perfect Warlord makes something that makes things as powerful as kingworld. Kingworld works once. If the perfect warlord has a significant chance of defeating kingworld with a plan, the summon perfect warlord spell is vastly better. Nor has kingworld done anything to prevent GK from crushing Jetstone if the dwagons fall here. And what do you mean partially countered? That they will take extra losses? A simple shockamancy spell would do that too.

They don't know the name of the enemy casters. Charlie is a supreme thinkamancer, and could block simple thinkamancy attacks. It's hard to veil a horde of flying units entering a city. No tunnels for Jetstone, you're relying on defeating them in their homeground, where marbits pop naturally, and where they have many traps. As you noted they don't even need the supreme warlord to kingworld, you can cast against any warlord, so you could still be caught in a very awkward position when your army freezes. The turnamancer would have the same problems reaching the caster as any unit. The very short casting time makes this very overpowered.

They could yell Charlie’s name, ask around in the MK. Not a thinkamancy attack. You only need to viel enough to blast a fragile caster. A few archons aren't a horde. If the city lacks tunnels dig them; then they can’t do anything until you’re in the garrison and Kingworld doesn’t matter. You can’t cast Kingworld if the enemy doesn’t attack, ignoring the one hex works great. Turning doesn’t seem to have any effects that can be screened.

Veils have a save because you can see the false image- i.e. bats in the first book. You can't see this spell.

Once again YOU CAN SEE THIS SPELL.

Nor did anyone note any effect of any kind on their person.

You CAN save against things that effect things that are not you (see veils).

Thinkamancy has a save because you can think differently, as Jill did. She had the side effect of acting stupidly, which an archon pointed out. This didn't have an effect that could be broken. It was instantaneous.To have a save, you need something to save against.

It ends you’re turn. You could save against that.

[zilfallon]

It ends you’re turn. You could save against that.

Hmm, maybe Kingworld actually has a save but we just don't know it since Stanley(i said stanley because he's the ruler of GK who got targeted by kw) failed the save? If so, how does it work in Erfworld? Saves, i mean. I don't recall any canon about spells having saving throws.

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

The spin force can be calculated with this formula: {snip}

Splendid idea, but balls of crap are viscous and probably do not work quite as rigid balls do. For example, internal friction may dissipate part of the spin into heat

Golf balls are also not round. The equation is just an estimate.

Internal friction would not effect the equation. If energy is dissipated the angular velocity would change. Also there would not be much internal friction if all of the poo is rotating at the same RPM. If the RPM is high enough normal crap would just fly apart. Dwagons should keep the spin just below the amount needed to stay in one piece during flight but high enough to scatter on impact. That would increase the splatter radius and hit more infantry.

I did not check the math from the gulf physics website. The equation would need to include both the air density and also the surface tension between air and crap. I am also not sure how the yellow dwagons added spin to their poo. Perhaps a rifled rectum??

My point was just that there could be explanations for an object to follow a curved trajectory.

[zilfallon]

I am also not sure how the yellow dwagons added spin to their poo. Perhaps a rifled rectum??

In a world where a human can instantly die falling from 3 feet, or where the time is different in every "hex" (yes, the world is split to hexes), you shouldn't try that hard to explain certain events, for example spinning crap, using physics of Earth

And really, i think the confusion caused by spinning crap was exactly what Rob wanted. Maybe he wanted to remind us that... THIS IS ERFWORLD!

[mortissimus]

Maybe I am being to much of a math geek here, but I have always interpreted "essentially random" as telling us that the function depends on a random variable, with all three cases present in every scenario, but without telling us anything about the probability distribution between the three cases (except a dependence on height).

[Trotsky]

My point is that assuming 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 as the probabilities goes against what we know, which is that the numbers depend on height. A three foot fall might have 7/9, 1/9, 1/9 or 2/9, 5/9, 2/9 or anything else.

Which quite changes any calculation.

Assuming an exact 1/3 chance is, as you said, most likely inaccurate. Given the lack of anything more concrete, I found it a useful assumption to make and it seems a good baseline to start with.

Just for laughs, I 'm going to redo the calculations based off of empirical evidence. If we go by the number of falling incidents we are aware of (Wanda and Ansom in book 1 and Parson/Banana in summer updates) then we have the observed probabilities as:
death = 0 Incapacitation = 1/4 Injured = 3/4.

Since straight death is, seemingly, impossible, it shall not be included in further calculations. Now for the absolutely useless (but highly entertaining) mathamancy:
Wanda survives:
injured only. Chances = 3/4
Incapacitated and healed by Jack. Chances= 1/4 * 3/4 = 3/16
total = 15/16

Wanda does not survive:
Both Wanda and Jack incapacitated. Chances = 1/4 * 1/4 = 1/16
Total = 1/16

I like them odds.

And even that observation has at least three basic assumptions, 1) the mount and rider have separate probabilities, 2) the mount doesn't cushion the fall in some way, and 3) there is no difference between falling from having your mount shot out from under you and falling because the guy riding you is fat and made you jump off a rampart. Also, four subjects spread across three incidents are hardly statistically significant.


In slightly more seriousness, do the falling rules mean that jump-rope would be a significantly dangerous exercise on Erfworld?

P.S. I really need to proofread these things better.

[mortissimus]

I like them odds.

Me too.

If Parson was more of a gamer he would have ordered his least valuable units to perform experiments in jumping of dwagons.

In slightly more seriousness, do the falling rules mean that jump-rope would be a significantly dangerous exercise on Erfworld?

If so, so should running. And everyone trying to go fast would look like the speed-walkers at the olympics.

I think not, as I think that you do not enter airspace without having the skill of flying or riding something that has.

[Ytaker]

They hit enemy foes who were flying next to the top of the outer wall. They then couldn't assist him across hex boundries. You'd rely on them to hit casters inside the hex boundries at the last minute? Sounds unrealistic.

First hitting Casters at the last minute is exactly what those archons did. In GK Charlie had a bunch of forces in position to save the day and allow the coalition forces to overcome the GK forces. The coalition won because someone saved them. They did not win on their own power. Charlie could very easily have saved GK in this book, even with out forces that happened to be in the right spot. He could have told Sammy "end the turn right now or I destroy your kingdom." And then Kingworld would have failed. Charlie wouldn't have even needed threats since they want GK to attack, and then be there in time to take back the city.

Erm, what argument are you making? That Kingworld isn't overpowered because Charlie also has a ton of archons? Surely that makes it more overpowered. He can force people to end their turns with his massive army.

Okay lets say there is a 50/50 chance of Parson winning. So when placed Kingworld is placed against a perfect warlords plan they are even. Now consider that Parson win or lose can make another plan. And another. And another. Perfect Warlord makes something that makes things as powerful as kingworld. Kingworld works once. If the perfect warlord has a significant chance of defeating kingworld with a plan, the summon perfect warlord spell is vastly better. Nor has kingworld done anything to prevent GK from crushing Jetstone if the dwagons fall here. And what do you mean partially countered? That they will take extra losses? A simple shockamancy spell would do that too.

The reason he is so powerful is because he has dwagons with so many abilities. The author noted elsewhere that he always had them in the back of his mind- they had so many abilities that they could serve as a save if he wrote Parson into a corner. The kingworld spell worked, and if nothing else, has turned near certain defeat into a 50 50 battle.

Plus, if Charlie wanted, he could cast kingworld once every two turns.

It's partially countered because Parson has only managed to put his units in a better position, at a high cost, with the fall mechanic. He'll have to rely on manipulating the enemy's own mistakes and being superior to win.

They could yell Charlie’s name, ask around in the MK. Not a thinkamancy attack. You only need to viel enough to blast a fragile caster. A few archons aren't a horde. If the city lacks tunnels dig them; then they can’t do anything until you’re in the garrison and Kingworld doesn’t matter. You can’t cast Kingworld if the enemy doesn’t attack, ignoring the one hex works great. Turning doesn’t seem to have any effects that can be screened.

They can't ask around in the magic kingdom, as it hates them. Likewise, it's not really likely to work since you are trying to manipulate the neutral magic kingdom for a combat mechanic. Charlie is a master of thinkamancy, and it would be hard to break his link. Mentally adapt at ignoring you and all, he's not actually there. It's generally hard to get any air units into a city, as they will be watching out for anything doing that, and a veil does not make you invisible. Digging a tunnel is a slow, risky, and very painful strategy, that would take many turns, and give the enemy many, many chances to counter you.The enemy doesn't always know which hex your caster is in. Turning failed the only time we ever saw it.

Veils have a save because you can see the false image- i.e. bats in the first book. You can't see this spell.

Once again YOU CAN SEE THIS SPELL.

Nor did anyone note any effect of any kind on their person.

You CAN save against things that effect things that are not you (see veils).

Thinkamancy has a save because you can think differently, as Jill did. She had the side effect of acting stupidly, which an archon pointed out. This didn't have an effect that could be broken. It was instantaneous.To have a save, you need something to save against.

It ends you’re turn. You could save against that.[/quote]

Someone right next to kingworld can see it, and that requires getting past a city full of units- and it's real, so seeing it wouldn't make it break like foolamancy. The way people save against veils is recognising that the objects are not supposed to be there. You can't do that with this spell. And, how could someone save against ending a turn? It's the world, not you. If Stanley had noted that he had ended the turn, then that would be something to resist. This spell bypassed all units, who could resist, and directly effected a mechanic. Units can save- the world, probably, can't.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Boop KWW3,

Golf balls are also not round. The equation is just an estimate.

Internal friction would not effect the equation. If energy is dissipated the angular velocity would change. Also there would not be much internal friction if all of the poo is rotating at the same RPM.

Let's just forget about crap for a while. This is actually an interesting physics problem! To the empiric mobile!

... sometime later. For now, a few claims-

- you will never get a whole mass of something* spinning uniformly by applying an outside mechanical twist. Unless you use magic, and we'll ignore that uhm possibility.

EDIT: * strictly speaking, this is valid for every real material, because there exists no rigid solid. However, I meant to say you can't etc etc if the something in question is fluid-ish. That's when the impossibility is really noticeable.

EDIT, EDIT: well ok. If you take a fluidish thing, and spin it long enough, all of it will get rotating, eventually. You'll need to spin it for quite some time though, longer than if it were solid.

- internal friction will affect the physics of curve balls. Curving happens because of the spinning that the projectile does. If the projectile doesn't spin much, the effect you describe is much less strong.

- in fact, liquid-filled things are tougher to spin than rigid solids. I mean, example: if you have an egg, and try to spin it, if the egg is hard-boiled it will spin for much longer than if it were raw.

So now, the challenge: we know that it's possible to throw a curveball with, say, a base ball. The ball is actually filled with air, which is not rigid material, but most of the mass is solid. Can one still throw curve balls if the base ball were filled with water? We'll assume the ball to be made waterproof.

Ten schmuckers says no.

Now, back to crap. It would be somewhere in between the two extremes (solid ball, liquid ball).

[falldowngoboom]

"Plus, if Charlie wanted, he could cast kingworld once every two turns." This still annoys me. Charlie could not be contacted for Two turns. http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -03-19.png The Arkendish was in constant use. Yes he could technically cast it every two turns, but that would mean HE couldn't do anything else except in small windows before and after casting. Any tactic that requires your leader to be completely out of touch for two turns is not something to be used lightly. Another thing. Charlie has NO Warlords, which means most of his archons are unled troops. Let that sink in. That means if Charlie is out of contact for two turns no one except a select few can change orders for two turns. That is really bad.

So yeah, Kingworld stops a single side's turn with each cast. Kingworld costs Charlie Two turns during which anything can happen to his very expensive troops anywhere in the world and he/they can do all of jack boop to stop it. If that doesn't show that there is a balance, I don't know what can.

[zilfallon]

"Plus, if Charlie wanted, he could cast kingworld once every two turns." This still annoys me. Charlie could not be contacted for Two turns. http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -03-19.png The Arkendish was in constant use. Yes he could technically cast it every two turns, but that would mean HE couldn't do anything else except in small windows before and after casting. Any tactic that requires your leader to be completely out of touch for two turns is not something to be used lightly. Another thing. Charlie has NO Warlords, which means most of his archons are unled troops. Let that sink in. That means if Charlie is out of contact for two turns no one except a select few can change orders for two turns. That is really bad.

So yeah, Kingworld stops a single side's turn with each cast. Kingworld costs Charlie Two turns during which anything can happen to his very expensive troops anywhere in the world and he/they can do all of jack boop to stop it. If that doesn't show that there is a balance, I don't know what can.

Interesting point, but some archons have leadership so they won't be totally unled.

[Trotsky]

Boop KWW3,

...

EDIT, EDIT: well ok. If you take a fluidish thing, and spin it long enough, all of it will get rotating, eventually. You'll need to spin it for quite some time though, longer than if it were solid.

...

- in fact, liquid-filled things are tougher to spin than rigid solids. I mean, example: if you have an egg, and try to spin it, if the egg is hard-boiled it will spin for much longer than if it were raw.

What if the dwagons' intestines kept the crap in a constant state of spinning through musculature contractions, much how the stomach mixes food and acids? Or, possibly, the dwagon cwap is actually excreted as a solid and, upon reacting with the air, liquefies as it falls, that would explain why it smashed through the window and then splattered instead of just splattering on the window. Heck, it might require eating something special (let's say, Marbitchow) for breakfast in order to get the solid cwap and only if they excrete an initial solid does it count as a siege attack.

As for the idea of rifled intestines, it wouldn't work. Rifling makes it spin perpendicular to the motion (and serves to help bullets fly STRAIGHTER by avoiding tumbling, if I recall correctly). In order to create a curved trajectory you need to have a spin that is, at least partly, in the motion of the ball.

Note: I'm not entirely sure I'm using the correct conventions when relating a rotational vector to a straight one. The point I am making is that, when rifled, the two vectors that describe the rotation are both orthogonal to the trajectory of the object.

[Ace]

"Plus, if Charlie wanted, he could cast kingworld once every two turns." This still annoys me. Charlie could not be contacted for Two turns. http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -03-19.png The Arkendish was in constant use. Yes he could technically cast it every two turns, but that would mean HE couldn't do anything else except in small windows before and after casting. Any tactic that requires your leader to be completely out of touch for two turns is not something to be used lightly. Another thing. Charlie has NO Warlords, which means most of his archons are unled troops. Let that sink in. That means if Charlie is out of contact for two turns no one except a select few can change orders for two turns. That is really bad.

So yeah, Kingworld stops a single side's turn with each cast. Kingworld costs Charlie Two turns during which anything can happen to his very expensive troops anywhere in the world and he/they can do all of jack boop to stop it. If that doesn't show that there is a balance, I don't know what can.

We don't know the reason Charlie was offline all day, and while it's likely it was for the link, that doesn't mean every time will need to be like that. It may just be he can only link from a distance of 1000 miles, and the city of Spacerock was 1500 miles away, so he had to link up before they got there. Who knows?

[barawn]

Plus, if Charlie wanted, he could cast kingworld once every two turns.

Yes, and if we didn't know Summon Perfect Warlord's actual cost and requirements, you could apparently cast it once every turn. Hey, maybe Wake Dormant Volcano doesn't actually require a volcano - there's always magma somewhere deep enough, after all - and you could cast it all the time, anywhere you want! Now, that would be broken!

Have we ever seen Kingworld before now? No. Would it have been useful previously? Well, if it's as broken as you say, almost certainly. Therefore, it's logical to conclude that Kingworld has requirements that we don't know about (including possible cost, availability, and danger).

You're assuming your conclusion. We know virtually nothing about Kingworld. So we have to assume the unknown parts. If, in your assumption, you assume it's broken, you discover that gasp it's broken. If you assume it isn't broken, it isn't.

As an aside: it cost Vanna two turns worth of juice. We have absolutely no idea how much juice it cost Charlie. We also have no idea how good a Turnamancer Vanna is. So maybe you could cast it once a turn. Once every other turn. Once every hundred turns. No idea, whatsoever.

He'll have to rely on manipulating the enemy's own mistakes and being superior to win.

Kingworld succeeding required manipulating the enemy's mistakes to win, too. If Wanda had struck right away, it wouldn't've worked. Even if they had cast it immediately, the presence of Jillian's force in the air would've allowed Wanda to create more Decrypted.