Summer Update - 036

[DevilDan]

the city was designed by a thinkamancer link with a dirtamancer. the full design is all by those two. so much is said. why would they include those fixtures? maybe the magik kingdom needs those fixtures to function and they are simply emulating what they know of other succesful designs.

Saying that they are responsible for "the full design" is, well, saying a lot. Surely they influenced the design in many aspects, but it seems pretty fantastic to imagine that every aspect of an entire city was devised by two characters in a short timespan. If a city can pop by itself, without even a dirtamancer, then surely Erf is capable of handling details like filling in the hundreds of buildings in the city?

If Sizemore or Maggie did choose to create an ice house, then surely Parson would have received some answer from them about it, even if it's "it seemed right" or "all cities have an ice house even if we don't know what the ice is for."

[Menlo Marseilles]

Also, Wanda, once attuned to the pliers might be immune.

We are still waiting for that "don't they cancel each other out or something" shoe to drop...

[moose o death]

yes it is likely those buildings are adding bonuses, but from a practical standpoint they are useless. they could have just been generic homes with production bonus written on the door. but it wouldn't look good.

a slaughterhouse that doesn't do any slaughtering is a useless structure. it's only because it adds a bonus, and only does so if parson checks it, that it's still there being useless.

[MarchHatter]

yes it is likely those buildings are adding bonuses, but from a practical standpoint they are useless. they could have just been generic homes with production bonus written on the door. but it wouldn't look good.

a slaughterhouse that doesn't do any slaughtering is a useless structure. it's only because it adds a bonus, and only does so if parson checks it, that it's still there being useless.

Titans forbid it starts to be useful again and someone gets slaughtered in the slaughter house.

I have a feeling someone might get slaughtered there in the future. But too bad bodies disapear like trash in the morning, good for cleaning, bad for creepy effects.

[DevilDan]

yes it is likely those buildings are adding bonuses, but from a practical standpoint they are useless. they could have just been generic homes with production bonus written on the door. but it wouldn't look good.

a slaughterhouse that doesn't do any slaughtering is a useless structure. it's only because it adds a bonus, and only does so if parson checks it, that it's still there being useless.

Is it as simple as that? Maybe you need a slaughterhouse to enable you to auto-harvest the livestock.

And, as far as we know, Parson's presence is only providing a bonus and is not a requirement.

[moose o death]

they don't have a mc stupid's to pop mc stupid meals. the world is perfectly capable of popping things without. as far as i'm concerned having those buildings is simply to lower the costs involved. taking pressure off the magically popped and putting it onto the resource side. they could probably man those buildings with twolls for even bigger bonus's but they don't have troops to spare for something inane like an icehouse.

so for now parson wanders around looking at empty buildings to make sure they're still fully assembled. which awards their bonus.

gk needs a task. here's hoping they build a decent enough dwagon army soon. particularly hoping for heavy dwagons to be discovered so parson can get mounted. otherwise i can see why stanley is depressed.

[gameboy1234]

Is it as simple as that? Maybe you need a slaughterhouse to enable you to auto-harvest the livestock.

I'm sure it's something like this. I think a farm could still produce foodstuffs from livestock, but they probably do so at a higher rate with the slaughterhouse.

It's like a lot of sim games, as someone else mentioned. After a certain city size, you're allowed/required to have certain buildings. These don't really get "used" like a real build does, but just having them impart the bonus or allows some further function in the city. The arena is probably the same. I think I remember these from Caesar games, arenas are required for the largest city sizes. They did nothing, except produce lion tamers, who walked around your city spreading "entertainment," iirc.

At first I thought that Erfworld was patterned from games like Squad Leader or Civilization. Stacks are big in those games too, and combat can be very abstract. Now it seems that cities have elements of sim games too. Parson having to actually walk around is just like the Caesar games I've played.

[atteSmythe]

they don't have a mc stupid's to pop mc stupid meals.

Heh, clearly the farm is McDonald's!

Parson having to actually walk around is just like the Caesar games I've played.

Wow, good call - I can't believe I missed that after playing so many city-walkers.

[Ambug666]

Buildings that are just there to give bonuses without actually being used reminds me of Civilization the computer game. You can build a Colosseum to increase your city's happiness, but that doesn't mean it will be used.

[DevilDan]

they don't have a mc stupid's to pop mc stupid meals. the world is perfectly capable of popping things without. as far as i'm concerned having those buildings is simply to lower the costs involved. taking pressure off the magically popped and putting it onto the resource side.

Arguments based on the results of the very rare, complex, and powerful "summon perfect warlord" spell are suspicious at best, if not actually spurious.

Actually, though, it faintly irks me that if supplies pop for everyone that now this level of complexity is added. Of course, one could see how farms could significantly lower upkeep costs, meaning that those sides have more resources available for building armies or conducting wars.

[Jallorn]

"We must be prepared to commit evil acts for the greater good," paraphrased, Robert McNamara.

[Justyn]

"We must be prepared to commit evil acts for the greater good," paraphrased, Robert McNamara.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Western European proverb

“The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.” - Can't find a source for this one.

[moose o death]

they don't have a mc stupid's to pop mc stupid meals. the world is perfectly capable of popping things without. as far as i'm concerned having those buildings is simply to lower the costs involved. taking pressure off the magically popped and putting it onto the resource side.

Arguments based on the results of the very rare, complex, and powerful "summon perfect warlord" spell are suspicious at best, if not actually spurious.

Actually, though, it faintly irks me that if supplies pop for everyone that now this level of complexity is added. Of course, one could see how farms could significantly lower upkeep costs, meaning that those sides have more resources available for building armies or conducting wars.

for the first part. yo' momma (it's still the same thing, warlord summons or not)

second bit, i agree. as soon as the other level of rules was added. almost a waste of time having the upkeep rule. wanda's decrypted become less of a boon apart from instantly converting opposing troops. it seems you can lower upkeep to the point your city MAKES money per turn. if we assume the bank is there to earn interest on invested schmukers or just boost earnings by xyz%.

i hope this is foreshadowing, or else it seems the city updates have just been to flesh out the summer updates for a few extra weeks.

[raphfrk]

second bit, i agree. as soon as the other level of rules was added. almost a waste of time having the upkeep rule. wanda's decrypted become less of a boon apart from instantly converting opposing troops. it seems you can lower upkeep to the point your city MAKES money per turn. if we assume the bank is there to earn interest on invested schmukers or just boost earnings by xyz%.

If everything is linked to money, then the decryped work as advertised.

Each farm would add on average X schmuckers per turn worth of meat on average.

There is a Ruler UI that allows Stanley to see the accounting.

Wanda's decrypted army doesn't cost anything to support, so all the food generated by farms is used to directly increase GK's money supply. I don't see how this isn't an advantage of decrypted troops. They place no drain on the food system whatsoever, so you can covert excess food to money. If excess food is just spoiled, then the advantage of the decrypted army is that Stanley can support more dwagons than he previously could as all of the food can be used to support them.

[HandofShadows]

The world seems a poor mimicry of our world, as wargames are. But we've seen that even lowly characters can eat when they don't "have" to, and engage in activities that aren't strictly necessary for war. Can Parson teach them to use these buildings as they are in our world? He doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything constructive though. He's stuck in gamer mode, really, trying to figure out the rules, not make a life. As I say that though, I think of the picnic. It was only mostly practical, part of it was enjoyment. Perhaps this world will provide the impetus to transform Parson into a builder from a watcher.

I don't think so. In order for Parson to relaly do anything worthhile, he needs to know the ruels and the lay of the land. Hr gors and tries to change something without knowing about it it will likly backfire big time.If you don't know the rules, you can't pkay the gaem very well or deliberatly break those rules when you want to.

[raphfrk]

.If you don't know the rules, you can't pkay the gaem very well or deliberatly break those rules when you want to.

Isn't there some quotation that goes something like "learn the rules before you break them".

However, it refers to recommended practices. The key being that you must understand why practices exist before you ignore that practice.

In effect, you should become an expert before you start ignoring expert advice.

[Justin Miller]

So... hi there... first time poster. Finally got around to "Supporting Erfworld" and figured I'd check out the forums.

My first reaction to this update was...

So, Parson's Side is incredibly rich, but with Wanda being able to Decrypt enemy units and The Tool bring back dwagon after dwagon, how long before upkeep cost starts becoming an issue and somebody has to tell The Tool that he needs to stop his new (fun) daily hobby?

I can't imagine the upkeep on dwagons is cheap... and bringing in 2-3 more a day is going to start adding up!

[SteveMB]

So... hi there... first time poster. Finally got around to "Supporting Erfworld" and figured I'd check out the forums.

My first reaction to this update was...

So, Parson's Side is incredibly rich, but with Wanda being able to Decrypt enemy units and The Tool bring back dwagon after dwagon, how long before upkeep cost starts becoming an issue and somebody has to tell The Tool that he needs to stop his new (fun) daily hobby?

I can't imagine the upkeep on dwagons is cheap... and bringing in 2-3 more a day is going to start adding up!

If they keep conquering cities, their income is presumably increasing to match.

[Sonic Screwdriver]

The upkeep that's normally spent on maintaining all of the units at each of their new cities will be freed up because of the decryption policy. And really, Stanley had a small army of dwagons before the Battle for Gobwin Knob to begin with. With the freed up resources from usual upkeep, coupled with an increasing amount of schmucker production from the expansion, I'm sure he'd need a force of dwagons that could blot out the sun in several hexes before it became a concern (overkill 'slightly').

[Justin Miller]

Ah... see... I figured that since Decryption meant that the unit kept most of it's Intelligence (apparently) as compared to uncroaked, that the upkeep would still be (while a little less) almost the same.