Summer Updates - 047

[Lord Kasavin]

I highly doubt that Parson is engaging in behind the scenes schemes. Right now, he's out of the warlord business and trying to be a pacifist as much as necessity and boredom allows. Before he begins again, there has to be some narrative event to explain why he's back out fighting. It could be as simple as an order from Stanley. More likely, he's going to find something personal worth fighting for.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

jetstone had more than one heir. why can't tv have more than one? the backup heir makes sense if the main heir is getting involved in major skirmishes. he was almost croaked on that turn.

That is a good point, some royal sides (smaller sides perhaps) seem to just pop one royal "offspring" of the royal in charge (like Faq and Unaroyal), while others like Jetstone and TV are willing to pop more then one over time. It just seems like the Don had given up on royal heirs though.

I guess it would be possible for the Don to keep Caesar as his successor while a royal descendant is also on the scene, or does a royal trump? If King Saline had had a prince/princess already as an heir would he still have been able to make Stanley his heir designate?

but i do see cesar seeing everything as a threat to his position and doing something rash. probably after the new heir makes moves on bunny

I imagine Caesar might just be thinking that the Don has no reason to pop a prince/princess at this point unless it is to designate them heir and strip Caesar of the title of heir to TV.

Occam's razor says that was just Maggie trying to set Parson up with some hot three-way Archon action. Kind of a Counselor Troi without boundaries approach to her side's mental health. (And, really, its not like a thinkamancer is going to be blind to these kinds of things.) Not everything that comes out of a characters mouth has to be taken as literal canon.

Or to finally motivate Parson to question some Archons.

Another thought: There have been 14 turns since the previous update (where Parson interviewed the Archons) and 12 turns since the Carpoolundians pulled their first trap at Carport (unclear if the city was recaptured). It might be possible that Parson also learned of the "hot spots" that Charlie constantly monitors in hopes of getting business. One of them could certainly have been the Carpool vs. Transylvito border skirmishes. That sort of sustained, low cost conflict would have been rather profitable for Charlie, if either side had bought his services. Knowing about this and its proximity to GK, perhaps Parson has been pulling some behind the scene diplomacy. He offers the Carpoolundians some tactical and mathemancy advice and they keep the pressure up on Transylvito. Parson would keep one enemy out of the RCCII and keep pressure on a member of the RCCII, killing two birds with one stone.

An interesting idea, although I'm not sure why Carpool would have a problem with hiring Charlie - they didn't have anything to do with the RCCI, in fact still seemed to be pestering TV during it. Surely they wouldn't be buying into Slately's anti-Charlie propaganda even while taking cities from one of Jetstone's allies.

I guess in that scenario Parson's big challenge would be convincing Carpool to listen and accept his advice, which wouldn't be easy.

Hmmm I wonder if TV took anyone of significance prisoner in Chockula. A warlord perhaps (still not to sure what happens with prisoners, I guess turning or ransoming might be possible, questioning certainly is).

[moose o death]

damnit ninja'd again, imagine thos follows kasavin's post

an erf unit he develops feelings for who is KIA. i'm fairly sure most of the updates after banana's illfated flight were for the purpose of foreshadowing rules, characters, events, attitudes and locations for book 2. mainly for the purpose of taking the pressure of the artist having to do it all. the text updates can jump bqack and forth through every known character without needing to be drawn. more efficient for this exposition stuff. the comic can only really convey conversations, the rest of the detail must be drawn.

[BoopingCynic]

Maybe Don King is being more intelligent then we think.
What if he was setting up a way for him to step down have Caesar take the throne yet preserve his royal line ?
This would be an easy way for Don to calm down all the people who like Caesar keep the other royals from getting angry because the royal line would end .

[moose o death]

that's a long shot at best. i doubt any ruler has ever stood down in the history of erfworld. i think what bea did was about as close as you could practically come to stepping down. it's the practical equivalent of willingly trading your freewill for the right toi be sent into wars at a moment notice?

[Dancing Cthulhu]

that's a long shot at best. i doubt any ruler has ever stood down in the history of erfworld. i think what bea did was about as close as you could practically come to stepping down. it's the practical equivalent of willingly trading your freewill for the right toi be sent into wars at a moment notice?

Yes, it is pretty hard to imagine. And it seems to go against the nature of progression in Erfworld. Every royal heir popped has the potential to become a ruler, many unit types can be promoted to warlord etc... what kind of unit is a king or queen that has decided to abdicate?

Presumably if they were popped as a royal heir prior to taking the throne they couldn't return to that.

[BoopingCynic]

that's a long shot at best. i doubt any ruler has ever stood down in the history of erfworld. i think what bea did was about as close as you could practically come to stepping down. it's the practical equivalent of willingly trading your freewill for the right toi be sent into wars at a moment notice?

Yes, it is pretty hard to imagine. And it seems to go against the nature of progression in Erfworld. Every royal heir popped has the potential to become a ruler, many unit types can be promoted to warlord etc... what kind of unit is a king or queen that has decided to abdicate?

Presumably if they were popped as a royal heir prior to taking the throne they couldn't return to that.

Maybe he'd be willing to do something like what Bea did, maybe he's so wracked with grief he'd suicide but let Caesar be king
An abdicated King probably would end up as a Royal warlord or regent, if you couldn't step down then when you get a heir you should just go to the front lines and leave the heir in the city rather than pop heirs send them out to die or what have you
He might also just split off and leave most of the forces to Caesar and TV and start a new smaller side and then there would be two royals of the same line in two kingdoms if he then popped another heir for his new side

[SteveMB]

Erfworld seems to have fairly set dead/undead standards - if it lives it can be croaked, if it is croaked and you have a croakamancer it can be uncroaked.

Not the latter: "I can decrypt many unit types which had been impossible to uncroak before." (emphasis added)

[spectralphoenix]

An interesting idea, although I'm not sure why Carpool would have a problem with hiring Charlie - they didn't have anything to do with the RCCI, in fact still seemed to be pestering TV during it. Surely they wouldn't be buying into Slately's anti-Charlie propaganda even while taking cities from one of Jetstone's allies.

I'm thinking it's the other way around - Charlie doesn't want any part of them. With the RCC2 waging holy war on non-Royal sides, Charlie probably wants to stay out of their way until things wind down. As I mentioned previously, it doesn't make much sense for anyone to ally with GK (because in the end, they'd be more useful as decrypted.) If he allied with Carpool, and the RCC2 won, he'd probably be next on their list of non-royal targets to be taken out. It's been mentioned several times that the reason Charlie is as successful as he is is because he avoids pissing off the major players so much that they bring an army to his doorstep.

[Ambug666]

I'm not sure if this has been said before, but I bet Chocula pops Marbits.

[teratorn]

Why are people saying Jetstone has more than one heir designate? Ansom was chief warlord, Ossomer is chief warld. Tramennis is the oldest and probably he is the heir designate. I expect changing royals to heir designate to be much cheaper than non-royals (we know Stanley's promotion was very costly), yet I don't see how it would work to have a bunch of them.

[the_tick_rules]

I had a thought. Caesar said how low on resources his kingdom was, why? They sent almsot no forces to GK and their losses at the Stanley battle couldn't have been more than doombats and a few warlords? Is it because they are just going through other troubles or did they sink a bunch of resources into FAQ?

[dirocyn]

Why are people saying Jetstone has more than one heir designate? Ansom was chief warlord, Ossomer is chief warld. Tramennis is the oldest and probably he is the heir designate. I expect changing royals to heir designate to be much cheaper than non-royals (we know Stanley's promotion was very costly), yet I don't see how it would work to have a bunch of them.

It would only make sense to have one heir-designate at a time, although there could be multiple heirs in a line of succession. In game mechanics, when you name an heir designate, you're paying for promoting him to king, contingent upon the death of the old king (yourself). Likely Jetstone popped a bunch of royal heirs because they are very effective units, smarter, stronger, and level faster. If you could choose, for your next promotion-to-warlord, either (a) the handsomest piker you've got, or (b) a royal heir who, if nothing else is just as effective as a piker and will level up faster--I think that's a pretty easy call.

[Krennson]

hmmm... I think King Don has decided that the little social habits of royalty DO matter after all. if you combine this update with update 21.......

I think Don is starting to think that a pure meritocracy that ignores royalty, and Stanley's meritocracy of Toolness, are uncomfortably similiar. Talking with King Slately, Don is probably deciding that all the politeness and long-visioned aspects of being Royal ARE important.

So, Don is popping a Royal heir, and is encouraging Julian to pop a royal heir, as a statement that that the CULTURE that stanley is fighting against is WORTH DEFENDING.

Not certain about how he's treating Caesar though... outright betrayal seems out of character for someone trying to bring back the niceties of royalty....

maybe he's SIDELINING Caesar by assigning him to the war against carpool, as a DEMOTION, while he lets ROYALS lead the fight against Gobwin Knob? and getting Caesar almost killed was just an unfortunate side effect of delegating carpool to second-priority status?

[ftl]

I had a thought. Caesar said how low on resources his kingdom was, why? They sent almsot no forces to GK and their losses at the Stanley battle couldn't have been more than doombats and a few warlords? Is it because they are just going through other troubles or did they sink a bunch of resources into FAQ?

I believe Caesar was complaining about all the resources they were sinking in to rebuilding FAQ.

[raphfrk]

Why are people saying Jetstone has more than one heir designate? Ansom was chief warlord, Ossomer is chief warld. Tramennis is the oldest and probably he is the heir designate.

Ansom was the Heir of Jetstone. (See the third panel)

[FredLemerory]

Another disappointing update. Near the start of the updates Transylvito was going to smarten up and do things their way. We were lured with the promise of something grand, only to have it stripped away in favor of bland plot development. Apparently by smarten up they meant become complete idiots, and by do things their way they meant rejoin the RCC as soon as possible and do things the exact same way as before, only worse. I was looking forward to some vampire guerrilla warfare of super cool awesomeness. Instead they abandoned that plan, apparently the whole "new way of doing things" was only a plot device to get FAQ back in the picture, now that they are there it has been forgotten in favor of bleh and idiocy.

Disappointing update on this one too.

[Krennson]

Another disappointing update. Near the start of the updates Transylvito was going to smarten up and do things their way. We were lured with the promise of something grand, only to have it stripped away in favor of bland plot development. Apparently by smarten up they meant become complete idiots, and by do things their way they meant rejoin the RCC as soon as possible and do things the exact same way as before, only worse. I was looking forward to some vampire guerrilla warfare of super cool awesomeness. Instead they abandoned that plan, apparently the whole "new way of doing things" was only a plot device to get FAQ back in the picture, now that they are there it has been forgotten in favor of bleh and idiocy.

Disappointing update on this one too.

unless..... what of TV is getting ready to wage diplomacy by marriage? that might actually be clever, if game mechanics allow it.... try to intermarry every royal state into a giant royal 'clan' ?

[DevilDan]

I had a thought. Caesar said how low on resources his kingdom was, why? They sent almsot no forces to GK and their losses at the Stanley battle couldn't have been more than doombats and a few warlords? Is it because they are just going through other troubles or did they sink a bunch of resources into FAQ?

I believe Caesar was complaining about all the resources they were sinking in to rebuilding FAQ.

I can see Caesar's point of view: Why spend money building up a kingdom for someone else when they could be building those cities as Transylvito cities?

[Lady Nerevar]

especially when that someone else is a rash barbarian who has a thing for getting into trouble. versus an experienced, arguably wise leader like Don.