Summer Updates - 042

[ZDouglas]

One point that i note from this latest update is that soon Unaroyal's capital will be up for the taking.

I'm quite interested to see the mechanics of taking another capital side's capital. So far we've seen FAQ fall and used to start a new side (originally called faq again), and a mention of annexing a side into a "greater kingdom" (Summer Update 40) both of which imply someone would still be (nominally at least) in charge of the capital side's troops, but stanley won't want anyone else with overlordly power on GK's side.

Of course it's entirely possible that you can just capture a capital with no further complications but the idea of stanley being forced to power share is entertaining. Also the possibility of someone claiming the city and starting a new side right on stanley's door step is pretty tasty (*cough*wanda*cough*)

[Yosarian]

Heh. I just had a scary idea.

I wonder if Wanda would be able to convince Ansom that it would be in Stanly's own good for him to be, well, "popped again", that is, killed and decrypted.

From the way we've learned about loyalty before, a warlord is capable of doing something that he thinks is in his warlords own good even if it's against his orders, right?

Which would end up with Wanda being the ultimate puppet master, in total control over the guy who is theoretically her overlord.

[OneHugeTuck]

i have no problem with speculation, i submit enough ideas other people do not like, but that speculation is counterproductive as it starts out with clearly impossible situations and builds from there. that would be like speculating barrack obama was the second gunmen in the JFK assasination. it's based on two things that could never plausibly be connected.

Exactly so!
I'm delighted that to see that someone else has a similar aesthetic dividing plausible and enjoyable speculation from wild and bizarre invention; thank you for laying it out clearly.
Roszlishan

Y'all missed my point. The point being, speculation is fun. It's fine if you think yours is better, but still, it's all speculation.

Erfworld is nothing but wild and bizarre invention. I like wild and bizarre invention. I guess you don't Ros. That's cool. To each our own.

Back to Moose's refute, we don't know for sure whether or not a (chief) warlord in any particular city has any say in production or not. Do we know where the Plaid clan comes from? Facial structures...possibly true, but speculation also.

I'm having fun. Hope you are too.

[Dwagon_Cwoaker]

i have no problem with speculation, i submit enough ideas other people do not like, but that speculation is counterproductive as it starts out with clearly impossible situations and builds from there. that would be like speculating barrack obama was the second gunmen in the JFK assasination. it's based on two things that could never plausibly be connected.

Exactly so!
I'm delighted that to see that someone else has a similar aesthetic dividing plausible and enjoyable speculation from wild and bizarre invention; thank you for laying it out clearly.
Roszlishan

Y'all missed my point. The point being, speculation is fun. It's fine if you think yours is better, but still, it's all speculation.

Erfworld is nothing but wild and bizarre invention. I like wild and bizarre invention. I guess you don't Ros. That's cool. To each our own.

Back to Moose's refute, we don't know for sure whether or not a (chief) warlord in any particular city has any say in production or not. Do we know where the Plaid clan comes from? Facial structures...possibly true, but speculation also.

I'm having fun. Hope you are too.

Irrelevant! eveyrone knows the comedian killed JFK.

[yay]

Irrelevant! eveyrone knows the comedian killed JFK.

no, it was those two good lookers on the grassy knoll

but anyways, someone brought up the point of how many blows to the invisible loyalty stat does it take to make someone turn. apparently alot, since parson and the casters are still loyal after being yelled at and abandoned by stanley. so Ansom having to run back and forth between the frontlines and capitol can't have that much of an impact. otoh, he hates stanley. he may try to cover it, supress it, ignore it, whatever, but he is not a big fan of the tool


also, if he was considered "one of the finest stategic minds", and he is on the side with the warlord who outmatched him, plus two arkentools, how is there going to be opposition? Charlie and the other arkentool join RCC? Two jetstone princes are better than one? Parson goes into a comma and wakes up in another alternate reality? Jillian discovers and reconstructs Voltron, Defender of the Erfiverse? (not complaining, just getting pumped up for next book)

[Dwagon_Cwoaker]

If there's opposition, its going to be along the lines of Ansom's Gambit turning into a disaster for Gobwin Knob. I know I said back on the first page that it was a great freaking idea, but if you're really going to sit down and consider it, there's a lot that could go wrong. A quick strike to break the dwagon chain, to hamstring the redistribution of casters and warlords that's giving Gobwin Knob a huge advantage, coupled with a sufficiently powerful force coming behind the Decrypted army as soon as it enters Jetstone territory to effectively isolate it, and all the sudden you have a situation where Stanley needs to call upon Parson once again to take over and save Wanda and Ansom from harm. Parson comes to the rescue, saves the day, but possibly at the cost of the Decrypted army that's been building for the past 30 or so turns and maybe a few good character deaths (Ansom dieing... again? Maybe Wanda, for the added 'omg' factor. Maybe kill a few on the RCC2 side, like Vinnie and one of Ansom's brothers.)

[shadowdemon_lord]

With Unaroyals capital about to be taken I'm curious to see what happens when you decrypt casters. A side as powerful as Unaroyal has got to have casters, and I'm sure they're going to throw everything they have into the defense of their capital, which probably means their casters are going to go down with the ship. So then I'm curious, do decrypted casters retain spell casting? Everything we know about decryption points to yes. So it seems that Parson is about to get a whole new set of toys to play with. This also makes the value of doing a straight shot for Space Rock even higher. I think Ossomer could if he was smart lead a counter attack on GK with the forces he has, and leave the defense and retaking of Space Rock to allied forces. He wont though, he'll turn his army around and attempt to take on Wandas powerhouse army head on. Wanda will take Space Rock and then Parson will plan a master mind defense of Space rock using the new casters taken from both sides to whoop Ossomer. We might even see a Dwagons take out seige redux, but working this time because of Jack.

[Infidel]

So, I think this is going to boil down to Ansom being too old school and not taking full advantage of new technologies. Consolidating would probably be the right thing to do if the decwypting option was unavailable, but in this case maintaining the offense is probably the best thing. Better to either immediately strike back at Slately, or hit his peripheral cities and grow the army while denying slately resources.

Honestly, not knowing the full situation, it could go either way. But for narrative purposes, it's probably going to work out that stopping is a very bad idea. Either Parson is going to say so, or he's going to claim not to be involved.

[yay]

if GK does go for space rock, Ossemer would turn around and head for home. but he might leave the RCC in the hands of Don King, leaving Jillian(or Heir) and Vinny to counterattack GK, or at least one of there bigger cities. i hope it's not siege combat again, but instead parson gets to lead a land war. or more likely a good deal of dogfighting between TV warlords, bats, gwiffons, and megalogwiffs Vs. Dwagons and the decrypted Archons.

[HailGreen28]

Can't believe nobody's commented on the main plot point of the update. After taking Unaroyal, Ansom wants to launch an all-out decapitation strike at Jetstone's capital.

I'd like to know why. Ansoms loyalty isn't in question, and he undoubtedly know Jetsone's strengths and weaknesses better than anyone in Stanley's employ.

Because its a good plan? OK, they just steam rolled Unaroyal by taking using one single powerful force to engage multiple weaker forces one at a time, and in the process converted the defeated to decrypted enlaring the GK army. Ansom feels this strategy is unlikely to work twice as opposing armies will now concentrate on either a single point defense or massive counterstrikes. Which one is Jetstone likely to do? Go on offense, obviously. It's what they do. The "counter" for the all out allied strike is a quicker strike at an enemy's capital, hopefully while it has only a typical guard. Jetstone also appears to be one of the more powerful sides and one of the most ideologically driven to oppose Stanley. Plus, the fact that he used to be a Jetstone man means that nation looms large in Ansom's mind.

Maybe not such a good plan.

If you're Wanda's force, you want to avoid getting dogpiled where the enemy can flood you with greater numbers than you can croak/decrypt.

A conventional march deep into Jetstone, bypassing enemy strongholds to head straight for the capital, could lead to just such a situation.

[HailGreen28]

1. The Heir Issue: Jetstone has a new Chief Warlord. But does Slately have an heir? What if Ansom is that heir? Could Ansom literally take control of ALL Jetstone if he croaks Slately soon?

Croaking? Why not capturing? It would seem logical that heirloom and positions of command are lost when croaked, and not restored when uncroaked/decrypted. For a standard unit, that's not a problem since they have no title. But capture Slately and don't croak him, and you get control over all the Jetstone forces.

Highly doubtful that capturing a ruler turns all his units to your side.

Now the decrypting thing, I know you discount it, and it's doubtful given Ansom's change in livery, but THAT might be worth a try.......

[teratorn]

Intriguing insight in the mind of a decrypted unit.. he needs rest but no 'food' apparently. And he is fanatically loyal to Wanda. So much so he is jealous of "Parson" (notice that Wanda calls him that.. everyone else calls him Lord Hamster.)

I also noted the "Parson" there. Wanda's relation with Parson is quite complex. She seems to regard him as a friend or at least in a friendly way, while she regards all others (including Stanley) as nothing more than minions or future minions. The way she told him her story at the end of book one was creepy.

I'm curious about Unaroyal's fall. Is a decrypted king still a ruler to his side?

[asparagus]

Okay everyone knows that Stanley is the manager from hell. What would you do if you suspected you yourself might be the manager from hell? How would you handle it?

[HailGreen28]

Okay everyone knows that Stanley is the manager from hell. What would you do if you suspected you yourself might be the manager from hell? How would you handle it?

Step back and try not to screw up, until I have a better grasp on the situation.

Sometimes that's all you can do.

[shneekeythelost]

Presumably, Ossomer has been promoted to Heir. Ideally, both Ossomer and Slateley need to be taken out on the same turn. Otherwise, Ossomer will become king as soon as Spacerock falls.

My hunch would be that with royals, there is a natural line of sucession; that is, if Stateley and Ossomer both were croaked at once, but Tramennis lived, that Tramennis would become King.

I suspect that the expensive (and rarely done) business of appointing a non-royal heir is only needed if you don't have a royal heir; if you have one, they're probably your heir automatically.

Actually, neither of these are correct. Remember, Jillian was officially declared the Royal Heir. That means that if your hypothesis is correct, FAQ would not have fallen, and she would not have become a Barbarian, because they still had an heir.

If Jetstone falls, Ossomer and Tramennis become Barbarians, until they can retake something to rule.

[spriteless]

Hmm. Ansom can't be under the effect of Thinkamancy. Thinkamancy is subtle. This is something new. Something completely unlike what Maggie does.

Understatement, eh?

[dholm]

They would only become barbarians if they had no cities -- that's what I believe, anyway.

[Dwagon_Cwoaker]

My theory is, that if a side (royal or not) with an heir loses its capital and its overlord, then a new capital city is designated and the next guy up becomes ruler. The hurt to that side would come from the fact that the original capital would also likely be one of the most productive and powerful cities, the loss of which would hamstring the entire side. Imagine pretty much any empire-building game we can imagine; when you take the capital, the rest of the empire folds like a house of cards. I believe its the same in Erfworld; the rest of the cities will still stand and be under one side, but they're going to be in a dire situation.

EDIT: yeah, if the heir/overlord is out in the field when the last city falls, then he would be a barbarian. Its what happened to Jillian; Faq and its two minor cities were sacked all in one turn due to their relative proximity and the high move and power of stanley's dwagons. It may be a little tougher for Jetstone's leaders to become barbarians, as the current Heir has already been shown to idealize the concept of a final stand, unless he designated the third prince as his heir and sends him running off to titans-know-where to start a new side after Jetstone's last city falls.

[raphfrk]

Heh. I just had a scary idea.

I wonder if Wanda would be able to convince Ansom that it would be in Stanly's own good for him to be, well, "popped again", that is, killed and decrypted.

From the way we've learned about loyalty before, a warlord is capable of doing something that he thinks is in his warlords own good even if it's against his orders, right?

Which would end up with Wanda being the ultimate puppet master, in total control over the guy who is theoretically her overlord.

One slight problem is that killing a Ruler freezes all units in the side. There would be no way for Wanda to decrypt Stanley, as killing him would freeze him.

They would freeze until the city they were in came under attack. Maybe a contract with Charlie would help there.

They could kill Stanley just as he is about to end turn and then have Charlie enter GK's airspace on his next turn. This would mean that GK's cities would only be frozen for the night.

Ofc, decrypted Stanley would likely not actually still be Ruler, Ansom is no longer a Prince of Jetstone.

Actually, neither of these are correct. Remember, Jillian was officially declared the Royal Heir. That means that if your hypothesis is correct, FAQ would not have fallen, and she would not have become a Barbarian, because they still had an heir.

If Jetstone falls, Ossomer and Tramennis become Barbarians, until they can retake something to rule.

It depends, if only the capital falls, then the Heir should still be able to retain control of the other cities.

However, it is possible that the rule is that a side must control a capital city. Jetstone might be considered to have fallen once the capital falls, even if there are other cities.

[teratorn]

Why is everyone assuming that Ossomer is the heir? He's the Chief warlord, but he's also the younger brother. Did we have an indication that Ansom was heir to the throne? It's possible that Tramennis has been the heir to the throne, and not the other two guys.