Summer Updates - 040

[zbeeblebrox]

Oh, and does anyone else think Haggar is going to be about as helpful in the RCC #2 as the Tardy Elves were in the RCC #1... they kinda seem like a buncha slackers to me...

At last Haggar's kingdom is much closer to Jetstone then what the Tardy Elves appeared to be. So they may be forced into usefulness.

Ouch - punfail. Someone wasn't paying attention to wordplay.

..I hope this light belting I've Levied against you has helped give you a leg up on what to look out for, so that other, zippier wits won't leave you panting, slack jawed, and buckled at the knees, wishing you'd cotton sooner. Overalls, I'd like to think I've been helpful. Perhaps it has even given you a new Lees on life, assuming my shorts response wasn't too rugged, leaving you feeling blue. I've accidentally left rude comments to people before, and it's never denim any good.

[Anton Gaist]

"For Ansom lives."

*insert ominous thunder*

[Krennson]

Maybe it just has something to do with an Heir capturing a capital site, giving the heir the option to create a new side, whether it's with or without their former Ruler's blessing is pretty hard to speculate on...

Maybe the benefit of spinning off new sides is that you get to keep the natural allies? that is to say if you just claimed a kingdom's city's and absorbed them into your own, those cities would now be able to produce your natural allies, but would loose the ability to produce the former kingdom's natural allies?

That would also further explain why TV was so adamant about Jillian reclaiming Faq, and not taking it for themselves... if TV claimed the Faq city sites they would no longer be able to produce Megalogwifs and gwiffons, and instead would be able to produce bats... Which would explain also why Don King was thinking of having Caesar claim Faq as a new side, to keep the ability to produce flying heavies. Though he wasnt really keen on loosing his best warlord in order to get those flying heavies... hence pushing Jillian into it...

That might explain the Hyatt regency.... Someone conquered Hyatt, and wanted to keep the natural allies, so they ordered a warlord to seize and hold it as an independent kingdom... ON THE CONDITION that they dedicate their first sixty turns to popping a Royal heir, or possibly retire back home and allow a royal heir from their 'mother country' to take over, once such a heir BECAME AVAILABLE. maybe the mother country needs 60 turns to grow one, or maybe the current royal heir is on the other side of the planet doing mercenary work and won't come home for a while?

[LordDarksea]

Having read it three or four times yesterday, I dreamt about this update last night. very cool! It wasn't a major run through the update or anything, but there was a painting of Dhrystone hanging on the wall with Ossommer standing in front of it. It was painted in the style of Charles Vess, if you know his work?, and worked incredibly well for it. He's not the first person I would think of to match the content, but it worked really well. makes me wish i could draw and paint well myself!

Also, I'd say they need some sisters, but disney might get jealous as they'd all be Belle's and Beauty's or, perhaps, Princess Priddy!

[DevilDan]

That might explain the Hyatt regency.... Someone conquered Hyatt, and wanted to keep the natural allies, so they ordered a warlord to seize and hold it as an independent kingdom... ON THE CONDITION that they dedicate their first sixty turns to popping a Royal heir, or possibly retire back home and allow a royal heir from their 'mother country' to take over, once such a heir BECAME AVAILABLE. maybe the mother country needs 60 turns to grow one, or maybe the current royal heir is on the other side of the planet doing mercenary work and won't come home for a while?

Which bring to mind the question of which sides can pop royals. I believe that we were told that only a side with royals can pop royals and nobles.

[Krennson]

That might explain the Hyatt regency.... Someone conquered Hyatt, and wanted to keep the natural allies, so they ordered a warlord to seize and hold it as an independent kingdom... ON THE CONDITION that they dedicate their first sixty turns to popping a Royal heir, or possibly retire back home and allow a royal heir from their 'mother country' to take over, once such a heir BECAME AVAILABLE. maybe the mother country needs 60 turns to grow one, or maybe the current royal heir is on the other side of the planet doing mercenary work and won't come home for a while?

Which bring to mind the question of which sides can pop royals. I believe that we were told that only a side with royals can pop royals and nobles.

the link is here:

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F079a.jpg

Several possibilities: the warlord ruling hyatt may be a NOBLE, but he is in the process of popping a ROYAL heir.

The mother country may have founded hyatt with, say, a level 10 warlord and a level 1 Prince: the warlord has to make all the important decisions and get all the real authority, in order for his bonus to apply, but the prince is heir designate and they're busy leveling him as fast as possible.

or maybe the Royal leader of Hyatt is MIA? they know he's still alive, because they can see his upkeep is being deducted, but he isn't inside the borders and he can't communicate with base, so a heir-designate is regent until he returns?

[Lord Kasavin]

Alright, I'm going to theorize that a regency is a side not ruled by a king or queen, but has a royal heir. For example, if Jillian wanted to do something rash like rush to the front lines to fight, as a precaution she could both declare Danny boy her heir designate and set FAQ to produce a prince (which I think is a royal unit that is free to declare as an heir). If she got croaked before the heir popped, then Danny Boy become OL, but has a prince on the conveyor belt, as it were.

Edit:

On another note, could the desire to split and form new sides be as simple as maintenance costs? A Civ IV mechanics assigns a cost based on number of cities had to EACH city. To simply, assume this cost is 1 per city. That means 1 if you have 1 city, 4 if you have 2 cities, 9 if you have 3 cities, 16 if you have 4 cities, etc. Point is it grows very rapidly and can cripple an economy if a nation grows to big. Hence, forming a new side with presumably sympathies (or at least not outright hostility) to the parent side can be a very rational strategy.

Finally, Has there ever been any evidence that its possible to either found cities or upgrade the level of existing cities?

[FredLemerory]

Hate to post in the older thread, but I just caught up in reading, and have some conjuncture to offer that could solve several conundrums all at once. Namely, why splinter of into new sides, and why are there not more warlords / casters. Tried to keep only what I don't remember someone already presenting.

Then theres another possibility, off the top of my head, also not supported but seen in many other games, of increasing production times on special units as the number of those units you control increase. This could explain why there are so few warlords and casters, each one you make causes the next one you make to take that much longer. We see with Jetstone that they don't currently have enough warlords to regent all of their cities as is, so no bonuses that a regent provides, and no leadership bonus to the garrisons, adding more cities would worsen the problem, and if its going to take longer and longer to pop warlords, then at some point it could prove beneficial to simply cut some of your cities and form a new, presumably friendly or even allied, side, that would not be suffering from critical warlord shortages and monstrous production times.

[DevilDan]

Didn't we have confirmation that only cities with royals can pop other royals or nobles?

[Guurzak]

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F079a.jpg

"Cities ruled by royals pop nobles (and more royals)." And also, "Royals claim to trace their lineage back to days of Titans."

It's reasonable to assume that non-royal cities cannot pop royals, since otherwise there'd be no reason to note that royal cities can. And, we can assume that royals cannot pop randomly, because random royals would not be able to trace any lineage. Therefore, it seems logical to infer that royal cities are the only source for royals even though that's not stated explicitly.

[Yosarian]

Unlike Ossomer, I don't see any great value in having an ally that hates you and is your neighbor. I think I'd rather "secure the border" than risk (another) ambush. Haggar has already proven their lack of respect for Jetstone by attacking them post-RCC I. Unless Ossomer can make sure Haggar forces bear the brunt of combat, I'd be concerned about betrayal or desertion per Murphy--at the poorest timing.

Well, Ossomar couldn't afford to march off to war again and leave a hostile Haggar behind his cities with an army, though; Haggar'd be likely to take more cities from him if he did that. This way, at least Haggar isn't at war with him at the moment, and at least Haggar's troops will be on the front line against Stanley, which means they aren't going to be attacking Jetstone from the back. Plus, now that Haggar has joined the coalition, he can't betray it without pissing off the ENTIRE coalition, not just Jetstone.

It's risky, to be sure, but it might have been his best option.

[Decorus]

Making a new side has another strategic advantage.
It gives you another turn.

For example lets say Parson is in charge.
He takes Faq and several other small kingdoms.
He has Stanley make Sizemore a heir.
Sizemore splits off taking control of just GK.
Sizemore is still allied with Stanley.
Now Stanley has two turns one for himself and 1 from Sizemore.
Lets further say Stanley rewards Wanda with Faq.
Now Stanley has 3 turns
1 From his Kingdom
1 From Sizemore
1 From Wanda

Now further suppose that the game allows for trade.
They can now establish trade between thier seperate kingdoms legally generating more revenue.

There are a lot of reasons to split sides into smaller groups.

[Guurzak]

That makes no sense at all. There were 17 sides in the RCC (if we count each of the elf tribes separately), but Ansom certainly didn't get 17 turns a day.

[Decorus]

Except there aren't that many sides.
Natural and Barbarians probably act as a single "side"
How ever Charlescomm, Trans, Jetstone and the others all had individual turns.
We also know that Allied troops can delay thier turn to act on the turn of another one of the allied troops. Hence the request that they wait until Charlescom's turn before rushing the courtyard.

[Guurzak]

The point is that each side gets a turn only once per day. You don't get a turn on your turn and then another turn on your ally's turn. You can postpone your turn if you want to act at the same time as your ally, but that doesn't give anyone an "extra" turn.

[Yosarian]

The point is that each side gets a turn only once per day. You don't get a turn on your turn and then another turn on your ally's turn. You can postpone your turn if you want to act at the same time as your ally, but that doesn't give anyone an "extra" turn.

No, but he makes a fair point; it may be advantageous in some situations to make your turn, then to see what the enemy does, and then have an ally who can move after the enemy goes.

I would personally guess that it's more likely that smaller sides are more efficent then larger sides. Sort of like in the civilization games, where a big side has to pay a larger upkeep or loses more of it's production to "corruption" or whatever. So, having two sides with 8 cities each might let you produce more and spend less then having one side with 16 cities.

Or, it's possible it was just a psychological threat on Ossamer's part. If Haggar is a back-stabbing, power-hungry worm, like he seems to be, then it's quite likely that he would worry about the chance Ossamer might WANT to crush him and set up his own side, on the assumption that Ossamer is also power hungry and would rather be a king then a warlord. It just makes the whole bluff more believable, and more scary, from Haggar's point of view.

[Infidel]

Hate to post in the older thread, but I just caught up in reading, and have some conjuncture to offer that could solve several conundrums all at once. Namely, why splinter of into new sides, and why are there not more warlords / casters. Tried to keep only what I don't remember someone already presenting.
.

Probably because in most TBS games, once your empire gets so big, the corruption gets out of control, spinning off another kingdom helps get it back under control, and give an ally in the field.

[moose o death]

where is this misguided idea that each side in the rcc got it's own turn coming from?

the coalition side was one side. they were all serving under ansom. jillian could be put to the sword for treason as far as webinar was concerned. jillian and webinar moved simulatneously. all of the rcc troops moved as a single stack.

now MAYBE they deferred taking their turn until theior allies were...but that is totally speculative. the overwhelming evidence is that rcc was a side formed by coalition. and could only take one turn. breaking the coalition on the other hand seems to shuffle turn order. as jillian and ceaser beat stanley to the mountain pass. implying they had extra turn after rcc, then another before GK.

charlie signs merceneray contracts he doesn't form coalitions which is why he wasn't on RCC turn. jillian however joined the RCC troops when she discovered they were taking down stanley.

all of the things i've challenged your theory with can be found in the comic/updates. i never recall rcc taking 7 consecutive turns in any day. you also forget the gobwins and hobgobwins are GK natural allies. they had turns simultaneous to GK.

[raphfrk]

charlie signs merceneray contracts he doesn't form coalitions which is why he wasn't on RCC turn. jillian however joined the RCC troops when she discovered they were taking down stanley.

Charlie allied with the RCC when he was under contract. The Archons in the "donut of doom" pages moved at the same time as Jillian.

The problem was that each side can only move once per day. Charlie moved in the morning, and then allied with Ansom when he had lost his carpet. However, since Charlie had moved already in that day, he wasn't allowed to move anymore.

The 2 turn trick was that Jillian and Vinny moved on the RCC turn and then switched alliance to Transylvito. This re-arranged the turn order for the following day and so Jillian + Vinny moved before GK.

[Guurzak]

The point is that each side gets a turn only once per day. You don't get a turn on your turn and then another turn on your ally's turn. You can postpone your turn if you want to act at the same time as your ally, but that doesn't give anyone an "extra" turn.

No, but he makes a fair point; it may be advantageous in some situations to make your turn, then to see what the enemy does, and then have an ally who can move after the enemy goes.

On first look, it might seem that way, but there isn't any actual advantage in any situation.

Start with a 1-on-1 battle: A gets a turn, then Z gets a turn, then A, then Z. Each stack you own has exactly one opportunity to respond to enemy actions before that enemy's next turn.

Now A gets a bright idea and decides to split so as to increase flexibility. Turn order is A1, Z, A2. But that's exactly the same order as Z, A2, A1, Z, A2, A1... we're still just alternating. I haven't accomplished anything except made it so that half of my army can't do joint ops with the other half.

What if they both split? Order is now A1, Z1, A2, Z2. This looks like it might be different, but it still isn't: each stack in A1 has exactly one turn to respond to anything the Z side has done since its last turn. Each stack in A2 also has exactly one turn to respond to anything the Z side has done since its last turn. You're not really gaining anything by splitting your turn apart- and, if either side *thinks* the other side is getting an advantage by splitting their turns, all they have to do is re-sync their own turns and force things back to A,Z,A,Z again.