Book 2 – Page 80

[0beron]

Didn't notice that Doombat, thanks for pointing it out. ... Predictomancy: Next page will be from the perspective of Transylvito. Don King will grieve his friend's death and explain how the duplicate works.

I wish! But I expect Don won't know there's a duplicate, he's gonna see the corpse and assume Jetstone has fallen. I hope he has the presence of mind to order the Doombat to look around and see the stack above, so that we do get some explanation about the Duplicate (of course, it could be a stretch to assume he knows any more about magic than most Rulers do, especially since he doesn't have a Dittomancer) Although Ben is a polymath, so maybe he will know.

[shamelessmerc]

This comic very strongly implies that the duplicate is "just like [the original] in every respect"

The comic does no such thing, that's a quote from Slately, who has been pretty well established as an all round complete idiot. I would take it as a rule of thumb that if Slately says something, you can bet it will turn out to be wrong.

"That double, it was just like me in every respect," (I really rather doubt it)

"This is what it is like to be alive!" (cut to poignant shot of corpse of Slately Prime)

[RichMan]

Oh my. Almost a perfect Charlie trap by happenstance.

Archon captured. But whole side about to disband because the king is a magic effect. Maybe Charlie could do the gate hustle himself through the magic kingdom and pick up the captive. Except pretty much all the casters with a thing against Charlie are right at the gate in the magic kingdom.


-- second though, ErfWorld BOOP --
Also what happens to the SpaceRock/theKingdom if Wanda shows up and does a decrypt before the King double falls?

[0beron]

-- second though, ErfWorld BOOP --
Also what happens to the SpaceRock/theKingdom if Wanda shows up and does a decrypt before the King double falls?

Well a Decrypted King would be one of Wanda's Units, and thus no longer a part of Jetstone (Ossomer turning back proved this). So I assume she could order the De-King to reclaim his former (now frozen and neutral) Capital and start a "new" Side...but if she were to go this route she would be far better off starting the new side by herself, or claiming the Capital for GK.

[jkosta]

Oh my. Almost a perfect Charlie trap by happenstance.

Archon captured. But whole side about to disband because the king is a magic effect. Maybe Charlie could do the gate hustle himself through the magic kingdom and pick up the captive. Except pretty much all the casters with a thing against Charlie are right at the gate in the magic kingdom.

And then war comes to the Magic Kingdom.

[Morni]

-- second though, ErfWorld BOOP --
Also what happens to the SpaceRock/theKingdom if Wanda shows up and does a decrypt before the King double falls?

Well a Decrypted King would be one of Wanda's Units, and thus no longer a part of Jetstone (Ossomer turning back proved this). So I assume she could order the De-King to reclaim his former (now frozen and neutral) Capital and start a "new" Side...but if she were to go this route she would be far better off starting the new side by herself, or claiming the Capital for GK.

Assuming the clone has the "ruler/heir status", then:

• what happened to Wanda in book 0 would also happened here, ruler (original King) fall, clone gains ruler status. Until the capital is capture the clone owns the side, if the capital is captured i'm not sure..


• what happen to FAQ 1.0 units when Wanda turned, FAQ units were fighting their former king (like Stanley mentioned) http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -07-16.png
• we know if a leader croaks and theirs an heir (book 0), the side doesn't end. Capital captured.. another story

and for money to promote an heir.. they can get the money, they can always raze a city to get extra smuckers... but who would want to do that.

[0beron]

That is, of course, assuming that Charlie actually has a physical body, and isn't just the 'Dish itself :p
(I personally don't think this is a case, and that Charlie is rather another Stupid-Worlder like Parson....but I still had to raise the point hehe)

[KonradKnox]

Well, I still mourn the amount of written content book 1 offered per page.

[0beron]

Well, I still mourn the amount of written content book 1 offered per page.

Well keep in mind that for a long time now we've been involved in a battle play-by-play. Much of Book 1 was Parson learning about Erfworld, and planning for/observing the RESULTS of small battles. Even TBfGK was less of a play-by-play and more of a "Parson had a new idea, let's see how it can go wrong!" kind of narrative. I think once this battle is over, we'll see more narrative.

[wrecan]

Doesn't Charlie have veiled archons hanging around the battefield? Didn't Sammy capture one? Shouldn't there be others who can show up, take possession of the captured archon, and pay Slately II the bounty?

[Saladman]

Not necessarily true, Wanda lends a huge bonus to the Decrypted because they're created with Croakamancy and she's a Master Class, so she has a huge "leadership" bonus to them the same way she does to uncroaked. I'm not sure there's anything to suggest the 'Pliers apply any bonus at all.

I was thinking of the following, but didn't have time to go look for it.

His mistress would add one to all Decrypted troops on her side, four to those in her hex, and eight to those in her stack.

And when Ansom, Chief Warlord of Gobwin Knob and a Decrypted unit himself, led a stack of six Decrypted heavies and knights with Wanda Firebaugh, Chief Croakamancer and attuned wielder of the Arkenpliers...

So actually that is a little more ambivalent than I remembered, but I still think it shows an artifact bonus. The only croakamancer leadership bonus we know of applies only to lead/stacked uncroaked, there's never been any mention of side or hex. And that +1 doesn't scale against chief warlord leadership anyway, it should be a 2, even rounding down, if it works like global leadership.

[0beron]

You're totally right, I hadn't remembered that. It definitely shows pretty clearly that the 'Pliers allow her to apply a bonus in the same fashion a Chief Warlord does.
I think normally she would be able to apply her Croakamancer bonus to any units she is "commanding" (not JUST the ones in her stack) but I'm hazy on that bit. I definitely know she never applied a bonus to the entire side before.

[Lamech]

You're totally right, I hadn't remembered that. It definitely shows pretty clearly that the 'Pliers allow her to apply a bonus in the same fashion a Chief Warlord does.
I think normally she would be able to apply her Croakamancer bonus to any units she is "commanding" (not JUST the ones in her stack) but I'm hazy on that bit. I definitely know she never applied a bonus to the entire side before.

I think the chief caster title is like the chief warlord title. And I don't see any evidence that said she didn't apply a bonus before. Parson didn't learn a lot of things until later.

[Vreejack]

I wonder if Wanda could disband the captured unit to prevent this bounty? And what makes people so sure the living is the double?

Disbanding is unlikely. Captured enemy units are likely "disconnected" from their original overlord. Otherwise overlords would never allow Wanda to sacrifice captured troops. Their upkeep is supplied by the capturing side, and are probably best viewed as extremely disloyal units thereof.

As for the double, it seems that--unless the original and double traded places upon casting--they were fighting the original all along and only managed to kill him the moment after his double popped nearby. At least that is the way it is drawn. When several people are watching you intently, it is hard for them to lose track of you, so it is unlikely the archons made that mistake. Also, the duplicate king's dialog seems to foreshadow his own coming tragedy as he discovers he is a (temporary?) duplicate.

[gameboy1234]

Didn't notice that Doombat, thanks for pointing it out. ... Predictomancy: Next page will be from the perspective of Transylvito. Don King will grieve his friend's death and explain how the duplicate works.

While you may be right, I'm personally hoping we get back to Parson in the Magic Kingdom asap. Hopefully Slately will get his bonus from Charlie, there'll be a poignant moment, and we'll cut back to Parson.

[Saladman]

You're totally right, I hadn't remembered that. It definitely shows pretty clearly that the 'Pliers allow her to apply a bonus in the same fashion a Chief Warlord does.
I think normally she would be able to apply her Croakamancer bonus to any units she is "commanding" (not JUST the ones in her stack) but I'm hazy on that bit. I definitely know she never applied a bonus to the entire side before.

Okay, I see what you're saying. This takes us back though to the argument about bonuses, stack bonuses and max stacks. I'm in the school of thought that bonuses (from whatever source) do apply to units in excess of eight in a stack, that Unit 9 and up in a single stack don't run naked of leadership or other bonuses, they just don't get to add any additional boni. (I probably ought to do a dedicated post in Everything Else when I have time, cause it all makes sense inside my head but I ought to lay it out.) Clearly Wanda in book 1 was leading many more than 8 uncroaked in a dance fight, but my thinking was that was just a large single stack, probably a max stack (whatever the max may be), benefiting from her leadership and dance fight bonus. And if I'm right about stacks then I should be right about a strongly stated, stack-limited leadership as well. But I admit we don't know in the sense of having it spelled out, and if I'm wrong about stacks then I'm likely getting leadership off as well.

[0beron]

Well the more I ponder this, I think we now have SOME evidence there is actually a happy medium (thank you once again Artemis, our plot-agent of Erf-sim) Consider the following:

• It was specified that the Jetstone unit's defending Spacerock's Outer Wall were in many stacks, because Artemis moved from one to the next issuing orders. Clearly then the 8-stack bonus is more valuable (in that situation at least) than a leadership bonus.
• When to RCC broke into Gobwin Knob's Courtyard, the infantry were on the ground, but Ansom led them in a Dance-Flight from the Airspace, so they were clearly not stacked together.
• Command units are able to issue orders to all their units in a hex, even those which are not in their stack.
• Wanda's Thriller dance had the uncroaked benefiting from her caster bonus.

So, there are some situations or types of bonuses that can pass beyond the stack, Dance-Fighting is clearly one such example, and the Caster-Unit bonus miiiiiight be another.
In either case, it's still apparent that the 'Pliers allow Wanda to provide her bonus, or an Artifact Bonus, to more Decrypted than she normally could to uncroaked.

[Nnelg]

Still disappointed in the Archons. With Ossomer's leadership bonus gone, it feels like they should be doing much better. What happened to multicolored special effect disintegration rays, to veils and confounding tricks, to 'total battlespace saturation' where (these exact same) ~30 archons concentrated simultaneous shockamancy fire on a single mounted figure from across a capital airspace with 100% accuracy? These same units supposedly had a nigh-certain probability of capturing GK in TBFK, which had at least as much force left then as the JS flying group has now, and they didn't have a leadership bonus then, either.

Seems this round they're reducing to flying archer infantry with a flashy re-skin. They're missing a lot, doing low damage when they hit, and generally dusting at the slightest touch from inferior units.

Ok, because so many people follow the logic "30 archons could take GK in one turn, so archons must be super-ultra-mega-powerful uber-units", I've gotten fed up and am going to rant about it.


At the time Parson did his math thing, the vast majority of his units were on the walls -leaving the garrison with just a token force.

What 30 archons could have done was blitz the tower and assassinate the handful of units there, capturing the city...

DESPITE the fact that those same 30 archons could never hope to take on the hundreds of units that would be automatically captured when the garrison was taken.


The other 'proof' of their accredited badassness is the frame in which we first see them in action.

First, the beams looking brighter and bigger than have recently been could just be a function of changing art style and/or deliberate flashiness.

Second, always hitting... MUST I give a lecture on how probability works?

Finally, as those dwagons only had a bit of health left, even a cherry tap would be all but guaranteed to croak them.

[MarbitChow]

At the time Parson did his math thing, the vast majority of his units were on the walls -leaving the garrison with just a token force.

Actually, the composition of Parson's forces is significantly more important. I believe: According to his stupid meals, he had 32 archers, 36 spidews (which may or may not have ranged web attacks), a few casters and a couple of air units. That's it. Everything else was melee, and fliers w/ ranged attacks can just pick them off at leisure.

[Lamech]

At the time Parson did his math thing, the vast majority of his units were on the walls -leaving the garrison with just a token force.

I think its just the casters, and taking top tier archers making a difference. All of GK's archery consisted of 32 archers. Jetstone probably brought that many top level archers on the unipegaturs, especially when we consider the dittomancer doubling the shots. I suspect the archons attacking the tower would have used their range/foolamancy/thinkamancy to their advantage and zotted everything before the targets got in range.

Second, always hitting... MUST I give a lecture on how probability works?

I count two misses in this fight. And a fairly significant number of hits. In the BfGK, then they all opened fire on Wanda, I see ten hits. I'll be nice enough to assume only ten fired. Then I see 12 hits in this battle. (An awful lot are blocked though). Assuming two misses distributed at random among the shots, there is a better than 50% chance that they will end up in the same battle. Nothing to see here.

Of course, the assumption that only ten archons fired on Wanda and co. could have been totally wrong; we weren't able to see misses.