Book 2 – Page 48

[kagato23]

And if they REALLY wanted to be truly nasty, all they'd have to do is have Wanda's big plated Red stick his nose through the main door of the Tower and use his breath weapon a few times. Fill the main hall of the Tower with flame, and then just sit back and hand out marshmallows . . . No need to do anything or go anywhere, just wait for the screaming to stop.

THat's a good point. She's got red's and purples, and once they have control of the atrium, they should in theory be able to use the siege attacks of both on the base of the tower. Repeatedly. Very parsonesque move, you don't need to fight your way up the tower, you just have to bring it down!

"It's raining men" might have a double meaning. It also lets the chekov's gun that is the Jetstone Jetpack be fired!

[boegiboe]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Just wanted to make some points that I don't think have been made definitively.

1. Zones: From way back in Book 1, we know the airspace zone of the city borders the Garrison at the Tower, and that the Garrison can be attacked by any City Zone held by the enemy. Because GK controls the Airspace (there are no JS units in the Airspace), GK can attack the Tower at will with flying units.

2. Falling: It is not absolutely clear, but I think the sense of the thread is that the Airspace Zone extend through the roof of the Atrium down to just above the Atrium floor. It is an option for any mounted flying unit to fly down to just above ground and jump off, removing the height part of the fall but not the zone-crossing Shockamancy. I'm inclined to think that, when it comes time for GK units like Wanda to land, this is how they will do it. (By the way, I'm glad the "one-third croak, on-third incap, one-third damage" stuff has petered out. We have every reason to believe that is not how the chances are determined, as fall height is explicitly part of the formula.)

2a) Wanda fell a long distance in TBfGK and was incapacitated. Parson may be hoping the zone-crossing cannot be worse than that, hence the potential sufficiency of the Healomancy scrolls, even if they are just for healing and not preventing damage.

2b) When Parson and Banana made their fall, they did not illegally cross a City Zone. Some have said they were not damaged, but that's not correct. Parson was definitely wounded in that fall; it just wasn't as fatal as he might otherwise have thought because of the slow fall mechanic.

2c) Take 2a and 2b together, and I'm totally baffled as to why the Banana Exploit is being used at all, unless maybe all falling motion acts as an interrupt, allowing no other actions against falling units until the fall outcome is determined, and so this is the safest way to give the hobbos and their mounts a chance to land without croaking.

3. Final Strategy: Jetstone cannot maintain its current force strength without an inflow of cash this turn. Slately has razed all the cities he can for now. That means all GK has to do to win is survive the turn. At least parts of the Atrium are screened from archers, so if GK can take the Atrium and hold it against the evacuated infantry, Js won't be able to remove them. Even better, if GK can destroy enough economic buildings in the fight, JS may go negative in its bank account during the turn, causing...what, exactly? I'm not sure, but if there are really no other cities to raze, I would assume Spacerock would automatically be razed, ending the Side. This sort of thing is the sense in which I've always thought Parson claimed it would be a "food fight."

[zilfallon]

With regards to the Archons, they can cast or cloak themselves right? They wouldn't necessarily have to fall or leave the air space if they can go invisible. Granted, JS has enough archers to mass fire and take them out, but it might waste a lot of shots for just a few handfuls of archons when they have dragons/ground units that are easier targets.

They can't cast all kinds of -mancy. The get one -mancy as special each level. Not all of them has foolamancy special, it's random.

[zilfallon]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Just wanted to make some points that I don't think have been made definitively.

1. Zones: From way back in Book 1, we know the airspace zone of the city borders the Garrison at the Tower, and that the Garrison can be attacked by any City Zone held by the enemy. Because GK controls the Airspace (there are no JS units in the Airspace), GK can attack the Tower at will with flying units.

2. Falling: It is not absolutely clear, but I think the sense of the thread is that the Airspace Zone extend through the roof of the Atrium down to just above the Atrium floor. It is an option for any mounted flying unit to fly down to just above ground and jump off, removing the height part of the fall but not the zone-crossing Shockamancy. I'm inclined to think that, when it comes time for GK units like Wanda to land, this is how they will do it. (By the way, I'm glad the "one-third croak, on-third incap, one-third damage" stuff has petered out. We have every reason to believe that is not how the chances are determined, as fall height is explicitly part of the formula.)

2a) Wanda fell a long distance in TBfGK and was incapacitated. Parson may be hoping the zone-crossing cannot be worse than that, hence the potential sufficiency of the Healomancy scrolls, even if they are just for healing and not preventing damage.

2b) When Parson and Banana made their fall, they did not illegally cross a City Zone. Some have said they were not damaged, but that's not correct. Parson was definitely wounded in that fall; it just wasn't as fatal as he might otherwise have thought because of the slow fall mechanic.

2c) Take 2a and 2b together, and I'm totally baffled as to why the Banana Exploit is being used at all, unless maybe all falling motion acts as an interrupt, allowing no other actions against falling units until the fall outcome is determined, and so this is the safest way to give the hobbos and their mounts a chance to land without croaking.

3. Final Strategy: Jetstone cannot maintain its current force strength without an inflow of cash this turn. Slately has razed all the cities he can for now. That means all GK has to do to win is survive the turn. At least parts of the Atrium are screened from archers, so if GK can take the Atrium and hold it against the evacuated infantry, Js won't be able to remove them. Even better, if GK can destroy enough economic buildings in the fight, JS may go negative in its bank account during the turn, causing...what, exactly? I'm not sure, but if there are really no other cities to raze, I would assume Spacerock would automatically be razed, ending the Side. This sort of thing is the sense in which I've always thought Parson claimed it would be a "food fight."

1. You can attack tower from airspace, IF it's YOUR turn. That was the initial plan, remember? Destroy the tower with an airforce. But you can't do it off-turn, period.

2a. Parson just won't make plans "hoping" that something "doesn't go worse than before".

2b. They crossed a city zone. They ended up in courtyard, falling from airspace. And he was wounded lightly. And that's because of the slow-fall thing you said, which means putting a heavy on a mount, which we've already seen and talked, which isn't a point never made before.

2c. Above...

3. Spacerock won't be automatically razed, that's NOT how that mechanic works. If you don't have enough schmuckers to pay upkeeps of all your units, you simply choose some units and don't pay their upkeeps, disbanding them. And "economic buildings?" I don't think cities have destroyable economic buildings. Even if they did, it wouldn't matter, since Jetstone's treasury is already empty and WILL disband most of its units next turn, unless they get schmuckers from somewhere.

[Dr Pepper]

That Tower is currently filled to the brim with Jetstone's archers, who have been pumped up to maximum power with every bonus and magical item they could find to ensure they'd be able to croak the Gobwin Knob forces easily. They're backed up by no less than four Casters, including a Healomancer, Dittomancer and Dollamancer... extremely useful for defence. There's a large number of Jetstone courtiers (which, given that this is Erfworld, means that they're noble-class units with Leadership bonuses) and whatever obligatory honour guard of infantry and pikemen the Royals would have following them around. And there's a decent-looking force of flight-capable units like the Unipegataurs there as well. And all of them, this entire bristling mass of military might, is being led by Jetstone's Chief Warlord and its Ruler. And all of that is only the force that we currently know about. There could easily be more.

And an earlier episode seemd to show that Jetstone also has clerics.

[zilfallon]

That Tower is currently filled to the brim with Jetstone's archers, who have been pumped up to maximum power with every bonus and magical item they could find to ensure they'd be able to croak the Gobwin Knob forces easily. They're backed up by no less than four Casters, including a Healomancer, Dittomancer and Dollamancer... extremely useful for defence. There's a large number of Jetstone courtiers (which, given that this is Erfworld, means that they're noble-class units with Leadership bonuses) and whatever obligatory honour guard of infantry and pikemen the Royals would have following them around. And there's a decent-looking force of flight-capable units like the Unipegataurs there as well. And all of them, this entire bristling mass of military might, is being led by Jetstone's Chief Warlord and its Ruler. And all of that is only the force that we currently know about. There could easily be more.

And an earlier episode seemd to show that Jetstone also has clerics.

They had some kind of elves who could do healomancy. Those elves were natural allies though, and we didn't see any at Spacerock. If you mean other healer units, then i don't know.

[boegiboe]

1. You can attack tower from airspace, IF it's YOUR turn. That was the initial plan, remember? Destroy the tower with an airforce. But you can't do it off-turn, period.

2a. Parson just won't make plans "hoping" that something "doesn't go worse than before".

2b. They crossed a city zone. They ended up in courtyard, falling from airspace. And he was wounded lightly. And that's because of the slow-fall thing you said, which means putting a heavy on a mount, which we've already seen and talked, which isn't a point never made before.

2c. Above...

3. Spacerock won't be automatically razed, that's NOT how that mechanic works. If you don't have enough schmuckers to pay upkeeps of all your units, you simply choose some units and don't pay their upkeeps, disbanding them. And "economic buildings?" I don't think cities have destroyable economic buildings. Even if they did, it wouldn't matter, since Jetstone's treasury is already empty and WILL disband most of its units next turn, unless they get schmuckers from somewhere.

1. OK, my bad. I looked back and TBfGK did happen pretty much all on JS's turn. I wondered why this was confusing

2a. Agreed, mostly, except that the words Parson has actually been saying have had the tone of someone really just hoping for a good break. I think there's still room for the possibility that Parson is really counting on getting a good roll here or there, but he's certainly not one to depend on that if he can help it.

2b. They didn't cross illegally, though. In their own city, on their own turn, they can cross zones at will; hence, only the ground-smacking part of falling damage applied. Not the zone-crossing part. That's the point I haven't seen made before. Sorry if it seems pedantic.

2c. The point here I hadn't seen before has to do with what some folks have previously noted, which is that it's not totally clear how time unfolds during a turn, and maybe falls have a special property in this. It seemed to me that a slow-falling target would be easy pickings for archers, but maybe you actually can't shoot at a falling target. It was just a wild speculation.

3. When I said "economic buildings," I was forgetting an assumption I made back when reading Summer Update 35. I just went back to read that, and I see "buildings" were never specified. The city has Schmucker-generating activities that can be observed by a manager, which Parson was at the time. So, I guess I'm still thinking that the fight could disrupt those activities, but I'm less certain now. As for my idea that Spacerock might get automatically razed, I was thinking that income generation and expenditure happen at the same time, but that doesn't make sense thinking from a game-construction point of view. The income should be generated at the beginning of the turn, then upkeeps get paid, then movement and combat ensue. So, I agree, that was a silly idea. But the primary point that GK really only has to fight to survive the turn still applies.

[Selexor]

Just a note about the Archons: I don't think they're going to survive this fight.

From a strategy point of view, I cannot see them escaping from Spacerock's Tower defences. We've been explicitly told that if you're in the Airspace, you can be hit; there's no way to dodge, the best you can do is change the order of who will get shot by which attacker. So if they remain in the Airspace, they cannot get out of the line of fire. It's not possible.
What's more, I also cannot see them getting out of the Airspace. They don't have mounts, so The Banana Exploit won't work. And they absolutely cannot move from one Zone to the next, which is the whole point of their current predicament. The only loophole that's even remotely plausible is that they can "stop flying" and let themselves fall, at which point they can "start flying" and catch themselves. Even if this is possible, and I see nothing to suggest that it is, it still won't work - if the barrier between Zones is the ground, then you're still in the airspace until you touch down. And if you "stop flying" until you touch the ground, that's something generally known as "falling". That'll dust 'em.
And yes, they could join all the Gobwin Knob units in a power-dive toward the holes in the Atrium roof, to lessen the height of their fall. Of course, when he sees that, and if he has more brains than a week-old ham sandwich, Tramennis is pretty much just going to order the Tower to fire everything they have at the diving Airforce. The Archons don't have armour or strong defences, they've (presumably) got fewer hits than the dwagons, and of the entire Airforce, they're the least valuable - decrypted Warlords that can't be resurrected twice, and of course the two casters, are more valuable. So the Archons will pretty much be the outer layer of the meatshield when those defences go off, which means goodbye to them.

And then there's the story point of view. If Spacerock falls, and Slately croaks, Jetstone is finished unless an Heir is named. And most of us seem to be in agreement that Tramennis will probably survive. And how could Jetstone suddenly get all the schmuckers it needs to promote Tramennis to Heir at the last possible second? Why, croak all those Archons, of course.

Either way, while I don't think we can discount them from the fight entirely, I sincerely doubt that any tactics involving the Archons' survival needs to be debated.

[Althernai]

2b. They didn't cross illegally, though. In their own city, on their own turn, they can cross zones at will; hence, only the ground-smacking part of falling damage applied. Not the zone-crossing part. That's the point I haven't seen made before. Sorry if it seems pedantic.

There is no "zone-crossing part". Crossing zone doesn't inflict damage -- it just either is or is not possible. The reason jumping off of a mount is not used as a means of crossing from the airspace to the courtyard is because it counts as a fall. Parson found a cheat that appears to mitigate the fall's natural shockamancy to some extent (they fall very slowly).

[Dr Pepper]

That Tower is currently filled to the brim with Jetstone's archers, who have been pumped up to maximum power with every bonus and magical item they could find to ensure they'd be able to croak the Gobwin Knob forces easily. They're backed up by no less than four Casters, including a Healomancer, Dittomancer and Dollamancer... extremely useful for defence. There's a large number of Jetstone courtiers (which, given that this is Erfworld, means that they're noble-class units with Leadership bonuses) and whatever obligatory honour guard of infantry and pikemen the Royals would have following them around. And there's a decent-looking force of flight-capable units like the Unipegataurs there as well. And all of them, this entire bristling mass of military might, is being led by Jetstone's Chief Warlord and its Ruler. And all of that is only the force that we currently know about. There could easily be more.

And an earlier episode seemd to show that Jetstone also has clerics.

They had some kind of elves who could do healomancy. Those elves were natural allies though, and we didn't see any at Spacerock. If you mean other healer units, then i don't know.

There were royal attendatns in brown robes.

[atalex]

Overconfidence isn't necessarily a weakness. Look at Caesar for example. There were many instances where he got himself into trouble by being overconfident, but he always reacted alacritously and decisively in those instances. To paraphrase one historian I read, Caesar was perhaps the luckiest general ever, but, to a great extent, he created his own luck by seizing and maintaining the initiative. The ability to correctly read a situation and take appropriate, decisive, action is probably the thread that links all the great captains in history. As Patton once said, "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow."

There's a saying I've always liked: "Luck is found at the intersection of ability and opportunity."

[Dr Pepper]

Hey, in honor of Duke Adam Antium's impending demise, let's dedicate a reference cascade to him. I'll start.

Duke Antium has experienced Antics in the Forbidden Zone.

He's Desperate but not Serious because he's following the lead of Tramennis.

Tram fancies himself a Dandy Highwayman and thinks that GK will be forced to Stand and Deliver a lot of shmuckers.

Next?

[Lamech]

From a strategy point of view, I cannot see them escaping from Spacerock's Tower defences. We've been explicitly told that if you're in the Airspace, you can be hit; there's no way to dodge, the best you can do is change the order of who will get shot by which attacker. So if they remain in the Airspace, they cannot get out of the line of fire. It's not possible.

Of course the tower can try to attack units, but where does it say nothing can prevent this? Screening seems to be just putting something in between you too. The baffle seem to make a miss capable. Similar how we are told the tower can attack air units, archers can attack air units, but arrows can be blocked. The archons in TBfGK could attack Wanda, but she had little trouble blocking it. I truly doubt the tower can shoot through a stone wall, like say... the one in the atrium.

What's more, I also cannot see them getting out of the Airspace. They don't have mounts, so The Banana Exploit won't work. And they absolutely cannot move from one Zone to the next, which is the whole point of their current predicament. The only loophole that's even remotely plausible is that they can "stop flying" and let themselves fall, at which point they can "start flying" and catch themselves. Even if this is possible, and I see nothing to suggest that it is, it still won't work - if the barrier between Zones is the ground, then you're still in the airspace until you touch down. And if you "stop flying" until you touch the ground, that's something generally known as "falling". That'll dust 'em.

Luckily you can mount multiple units on dwagons, as has been shown repeatedly. Also we note that Jillian was planning on mounting three warlords, Ansom, Elf-guy, and Vinny to rescue them from the dwagon dougnut of doom. So you can mount flying infantry such as Vinny, and presumably the archons.

[Oberon]

Communications is the high ground today. Cyber power can eliminate, confuse, and reduce the ability to communicate, and every modern weapon system has a computer attached to it. And I further predict that it will be very effective, despite the fact that it is a known vector of attack.

It HAS happened recently. Twice. Firstly, when Israel blanked their aircraft off Syria's radar when they hit their nuclear plant site and second, Stuxnet.

Sure, both of which are examples of limited scope events which made cyber attacks the known vector that it is today. I was speaking of conventional warfare, not border skirmishes, saber rattling, or intelligence operations. The sad thing is that this new vector of attack will be so very successful, even though it is by now a well recognized vector. Kind of like underestimating the CWL who beat your prior coalition which had a 25 to 1 advantage.

So you are merely predicting that technology used today might be used in war? Then you would have failed to predict the atom bomb (not that there was any defence against it anyway). The problem with preparing to defend against sci-fi is of course that most sci-fi turns out not be useful as weapons.

No, I'm predicting that weapons used in a limited manner will prove to be very effective when used in a broad manner, and that this will prove to be surprising to the side or sides that it is used on. This is nothing new, as many weapons from the chariot to the machine gun were used in warfare in limited fashions before they became the new exploit.

[Cyberchihuahua]

I wonder if this is going to end up like operation "Dinner Out".

[Morrowen]

I haven't read through everything yet, and the theory below may have already been made a few times, but first I was curious - I'm not quite sure what everyone means by food fight?

From what I've read - and I could be completely wrong here - but ranged attacks can possibly be made off turn but can't cross zones, is that correct? So, for instance, attacks by the dragons couldn't hit the tower? But, the implication from earlier in the comic is that they stick to the zone wall and slowly fall down? If they fall at all and don't just stick until the end of turn. If that's correct, and they use the heavy "slow fall" exploit to make it to the now exposed courtyard/atrium, would attacking the tower first create a floating "wall" that would inhibit the tower archers shooting at the dragons as they descend? Sorry if that's an old theory, just been floating in my head for a bit.

Edit: Further to that after reading the wiki a bit - looks like quite a few pink dragons in the airspace, and dragon breath can't cross zones off turn, it is stopped at the hex walls.. so by food fight are people referring to a great big wall of bubblegum breath shielding the heavies as they descend?

[Ansan Gotti]

We know that some Healomancy can, sure. But we don't know exactly what those scrolls are, nor what scrolls fall into Healomancy's discipline.

Well, every healomancy scroll we've seen up to this point is a generic healing scroll that restores people to relative health. So I'm not sure why they would be different here.

No offence at all taken on my part, and I hope none on yours. I don't want to seem argumentative or snide or anything of the sort, and I have no issue at all with the questions. I'm just enjoying the discussion.

No offense taken at all! I appreciate the civil nature of our discussion very much.

[Xorbon]

1. I think people are being too hard on Tramennis. He knows much less than we do. If you ignore what we know about Parson and his Plan, it would appear that Parson's trying to provoke an emotional response from Jetstone. And that's exactly what he gets from Slately. Tramennis appears to be level-headed and reasonable compared to Slately, not stupid. IMO

2. I wonder if Ossomer is sorry about the apparent underhandedness of Parson, or if he knows more than he seems, and is actually sorry for the asskicking Jetstone is about to receive?

3. Is the Jetstone soldier with the handlebar mustache Duke Lacrosse? I was hoping he would have a lacrosse-stick mace as his weapon.

4. They're dropping S-Bombs!

[gatherer818]

I can't shake the feeling that Goblin Knob isn't going to be in control of Jetstone, whether it's because something happens to Stanley, or because Wanda decides to break alliance and somehow start her own side.

Wanda isn't an idiot. She knows that Parson is bound to Stanley's will. And she knows that if she betrays Stanley, Stanley won't tolerate it and will attack. And this will mean having the perfect warlord as an enemy, which isn't good for her motives, AT ALL. Even if she finds a way to turn Parson, that won't happen. Why should she do it? She can control Stanley to do what she wants anyway, so why risk?

Have you considered that as the caster of that Summon spell, she might be able to take Parson with her (or at least grant him bonuses to attempt to turn) if she leaves GK?

Have you considered that Parson can't stand Stanley, doesn't like to even have to speak to him when he can help it, and therefore is likely to have an extraordinarily low Loyalty (his Duty seems to be very high, of course, but a high Duty doesn't necessarily equal a high Loyalty. He'd likely continue to come up with world-breaking exploits and re-invent Earth curiosities like mount relays for any side that he joined.)

Finally, have you considered that Wanda doesn't have to turn at once? Maybe after she takes Jetstone, she can convince Jillian to come over for a while and bring that Turnamancer with her...


(edited to fix broken quote)

[ftl]

I haven't read through everything yet, and the theory below may have already been made a few times, but first I was curious - I'm not quite sure what everyone means by food fight?

It's whatever Parson means in the last panel of this comic: http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/images/f/f9/LIAB_36.jpg . He says his plan "involves turning this battle into a food fight."

We've been speculating for months about what he actually means by that, whether he means using actual food to fight (popping rations off-turn and throwing them?) or just the free-for-all confusion of a food fight (croaking/decrypting jetstone troops and messing with livery or illusions?) or something else entirely.