Summer Updates - 048

[Dancing Cthulhu]

So, if Parson is being trueful, Ansom's parley attempts are genuine (though if they aren't accepted then discord is an nice outcome as well I guess), but then again we know he is planning a killing blow against Jetstone... I doubt Charlie would be silly enough to take Parson's word for it.

And I love that Charlie isn't apparently buying into any of this Titan mandate business - which fits in with his mercenary attitude. Who cares if they are royal or not, as long as the deliver the schumckers? Adds to his enigma even more, since he is the first one, other then Parson, to really express such ideas and notions. And I agree with those who suggested it - I don't think Charlie actually hates Parson, but he knows he has a real opponent in him and he has his game face on.

And to kill a tool... he probably wouldn't kill himself, which leaves Wanda or Stanley... or the yet to be revealed fourth Arkentool and its wielder. With Charlie's contacts far afield of this conflict maybe he knows something about that.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but given all the foregoing speculation ITT I feel the need to post this.



*slinks away*

Charlie is an epileptic tree? Or a unique gump...

An interesting theory, it would explain a great deal.

I like Charlie.

So do I, he's one of my favorite characters. Unknown as he is.

I am not so keen on the idea of there being ANY Big Bad at all.

I suspect the Tardy elves personally. Why are they always late? Because they are so busy plotting eviiiil.

The fact that there was no such "hold on, what did you say?" reaction from Charlie proves that he was popped in Erfworld just like everybody else, and Parson really is totally alone there.

Well Charlie might also be good at hiding things and not being tripped up.

Which reminds me - I wonder if Jillian has shared what she knows about Parson's origin with anyone? When Wanda finished questioning her she was telling her about the ultimate warlord spell Stanley had her cast... perhaps in her conversations with Charlie the subject of the brain behind the destruction of the RCCI came up and Jillian put it together.

If he doesn't feel compelled to work towards the same goals as the other Arkentool users, then what IS the mandate, exactly?

Maybe there is no mandate, and Charlie just accepts rulers will claim that something about them makes them more worthy and the Titans want them to be on top. Royals believe it because they are royals, some who attune to Arkentools believe it because they can attune to Arkentools...

Just like in real world terms there was the divine right of kings, until people said decided they could pack that in. Still, maybe Charlie doesn't worry either way, if there is or isn't a mandate, or what it is, as long as it doesn't interfere with what he wants to do. With the "royal mandate" at least he had plenty of work. Wanda style Toolism is saying it will change the world.

B) On the other hand, it means the same for Charlie. Killing a Tool such as Stanely or Wanda will hoist him by his own petard, since it will prove that Tools can be beaten--which means Charlie HIMSELF can thus, obviously, be defeated.

Why? Charlie has been around, and doing what he does, for some time. With his Arkentool. The rise of "Toolism" is a recent occurrence as it is now, yet Charlie hasn't been targeted by the royals before, who have been running on the royal mandate since seemingly forever. I'd say it is because he makes himself useful while not being a threat.

What Unaroyal did was not scorched Earth, but rather sepukku (spelling?). Nobody will follow that particular example until Wanda's at the gates.

It probably doesn't really qualify as either, though it has more in common with a very late scorched earth tactic (she did everything she could to ensure there were no resources of any kind to be had at the very end).

I don't know necessarily that it's really hatred. Parson and Charley are both competent and like to shoot the breeze even while going against each other. That's pretty common in games too. And it's also pretty common to get pissed at the other during the course of game-play. Certainly in multi-player games I've told my opponents I hated them when they did something sufficiently sneaky or otherwise detrimental to my pet projects.

That's the way I see them as well. I can even imagine Charlie "logging off" feeling annoyed before having a laugh and thinking about how he'll get one over Parson next time.

[Ambug666]

Charley is DB Cooper.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Parson conveyed two critical pieces of misinformation.

That's a confusing choice of words to start the expansion paragraph about, maybe, but considering the interpretations thrown in this thread, Parson sure confused us

There are: the explicit cost camp, the most numerous, saying that city upkeep costs explicitly go up; there's the marginal-utility-decrease camp (myself included) that says it is a combination of subtler effects and not a specific game mechanic; and finally the it's all a ruse camp, which holds that neither of the previous two applies to GK right now and it's just trickery.

Well done Parson!

[Zerohour]

Hm... I'm still not sure what the diminishing Schmuckers point is, but I'm guessing that it's something along the lines of the point where upkeep=production, so further production of troops would reduced or eliminated until they have more cities to fund the war effort. Stanley's been collecting dwagons for awhile, and the various cities have probably been popping more units, so their upkeep is probably getting to that point, until you factor in that Decrypted units have no upkeep. Still, they are probably 60% to 80% of the way to the diminishing Schmuckers point, so it could become a valid concern soon.

Charlie's current attitude is probably from being forced outside of his comfort zone, and actually being threatened for the first time in hundreds of turns. Imminent danger will make anyone edgy. I think that once Charlie gets a better handle on the situation, or is forced into battle, he'll settle down some. The former because he'll be back in his comfort zone, and the latter because he'll have the sense of security fighting off an invasion gives you.

On the other hand, his most recent discussion with Parson probably created a whole new level of stress for Charlie, since as Charlie pointed, out, if a Tool is croaked, then they're wrong about the Titanic Mandate. The problem is, if he brings this up to anyone, he gives them three options to stop their expansion.

-Croak Stanley, who's holed up in a hard to crack fortress city, with a military genius who already crushed one such attempt, and they're in a significantly better position than when they initially tried that.

-Croak Wanda, who's leading a massive army that would gladly lay down their lives for hers. Add on Croakamancy, Leadership, and Attuned Artifact bonuses, plus the fact that failure only makes her stronger, and it's not the most appealing choice.

-Croak Charlie. Possibly the best option, especially if Parson shares what he knows with other Sides. Charlie has only one city as opposed to GK's dozen or more cities, the majority of his forces are scattered across the globe instead of being readily available, and his Mode of Operation can be exploited (Buy som Archons at full service price and use them to attack the city. Buy nearby Archons and send them off on distant missions, etc.)

Charlie sticks his own neck out by pointing out this option, especially since Parson or at least Stanley would be more than happy to point this out.

Cities seem to be able to hold much more. Even with GK dropped to a level 1 (or 0?), the treasury was no affected.

That isn't really a good indicator, since the treasury was essentially emptied a week prior. It might have been affected if they hadn't spent it, or it could have stayed the same, we really don't know.

And your last example, the preaching of Toolism for allies, is consistent with the simple interpretation that, as GK's territory increased, it is harder to defend and it is less useful to add another city to it. Also, fracturing what looks like a dangerous foe is always a good idea.

This isn't technically true. In fact, as your territory expands, your border increases with the square-root of the number of cities. When you have a large empire, only the cities near the border need to be heavily defended (and your capital). The average defence per city actually drops.

That assumes a circular empire. If you drive in one direction, then you end up with a set of cities in a line and thus all cities are part of the border. This may be the case for GK, since all cities that were captured were part of a single drive. It might be worth trying to make the side more circular.

Also not technically true. For this to work, the border would have to be 100% secure, to prevent surprise attacks on the defenseless cities. This is especially true since the introduction of the dwagon express. Transporting elite strike teams to the border and then using fresh mounts to invade and conquer the undefended production centers is now a strategy that might be tossed around, and it could be devastating if there aren't any preparations for that contingency.



Random thoughts:
It's amusing that we're still calling Parson and friends's side Gobwin Knob. That's the capital city, not the Side. They're either the Plaid Side, or more likely, the Tool Side now.

Does Parson have an Honor Guard? Given how valuable and useful he is, I would be surprised if Stanley or Wanda didn't order some units to protect him at all costs.

Will Parson get promoted from Garrison at some point?

When do we get to see some Magic Item experimentation? Given how useful Parson's bracer has been, and the fact that they don;t know if it counts as a Magic Item or Artifact, I'm surprised that he's not having Sizemore, Jack, and Maggie experiment with what they can cook up. Sure, he can't go as in depth with Magic Item creation as he can with battle simulations, since he doesn't have all the classes, but he could still create something useful.


I'll probably say more when I have time, or just wait for the First page of the next issue. Whatever.

[raphfrk]

In my view, Parson conveyed two critical pieces of misinformation. First, as others have noted, that GK is no longer able to expand due to diminishing returns. Bravo for giving us this concept, it tells us that diminishing returns/maintenance costs do exist on Erf. Meaning there is a natural limit to how large a side can become before it has to rely on alliances. This would further explain Jetstone's having so many royal heirs--if they take enough territory, they need to "spin off" a new side, with one of the royal heirs as its ruler. This is a function of the game mechanics, and Jetstone knows how to play. When the kingdom becomes so big that it's losing money, start a new side that will be a staunch ally. That fixes the economic issue, and the alliance (now no longer a side) can go on expanding.

OTOH, we haven't actually seen one of those spin off sides, unless maybe Unaroyal was one of them. It could be that the spin offs only happen every few generations. Perhaps, Slately and Bea were cousins.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

By Charlie's logic, wouldn't the fact that royals have been croaked in the past also disprove their Titanic mandate?

Maybe Charlie is really getting at it would stop certain ideas on what the mandate means.

And to this question it depends on what their mandate truly implies. If it can be boiled down to "Royals are superior due to the Titans, who only want royals ruling sides" then I wouldn't think so, since a royal croaking in a war with another royal, for example, wouldn't disprove that in their eyes. The whole royal heir situation shows royal death has been accepted under the royal mandate. And it might seem legitimized since before Stanley we don't have much evidence of non-royals challenging Royal dominance.

Where as if (over simplifying here) a Toolist mandate, as delivered by a mere two individuals, was "Our attunement to the Arkentools demonstrates we are now favored by the Titans who intend for us to unite and rule all Erfworld" then some people might say "well it seems you were wrong about that" if one of them gets croaked. Especially considering how rare an attument is.

[Lightbender]

Heh, anybody else see a Majora's Mask moment coming with some of these arkentools?

[raphfrk]

Heh, anybody else see a Majora's Mask moment coming with some of these arkentools?

What do you mean?

[Lamech]

Hm... I'm still not sure what the diminishing Schmuckers point is, but I'm guessing that it's something along the lines of the point where upkeep=production, so further production of troops would reduced or eliminated until they have more cities to fund the war effort. Stanley's been collecting dwagons for awhile, and the various cities have probably been popping more units, so their upkeep is probably getting to that point, until you factor in that Decrypted units have no upkeep. Still, they are probably 60% to 80% of the way to the diminishing Schmuckers point, so it could become a valid concern soon.

Yeah but the diminishing shmucker point would mean they should take more cities, not slow down. Well at least normally, but since GK gets stronger when they attack so the "extra" upkeep might be more than the increased income of a ruined city. Of course there is no such thing as upkeep for the decrypted so its still just a lie.

So the camps are
Diminishing Shmuckers means the percent increase is small. An extra city here or their doesn't matter.
Diminishing Shmuckers refers to "upkeep" somehow. Either the decrypted have more upkeep then the cities gained or the garrisons needed aren't worth it for ruined cities and they need to rebuild. This is nothing more than a lie as the decrypted don't do upkeep.
Diminishing Shmuckers means more cities have less and less income. The first city makes a bunch and the 23rd makes a tiny bit. This means ruling the world is hard if your just one kingdom. You need an alliance.

-Croak Charlie. Possibly the best option, especially if Parson shares what he knows with other Sides. Charlie has only one city as opposed to GK's dozen or more cities, the majority of his forces are scattered across the globe instead of being readily available, and his Mode of Operation can be exploited (Buy som Archons at full service price and use them to attack the city. Buy nearby Archons and send them off on distant missions, etc.)

The archons won't attack. Duty and all that jazz, they will protect Charlie against his orders. It would go something like this...
RCCII: Attack Charlie!
Archons: No can do.
Charlie: Attack Charlie Archons!
Archons: Yeah please forgive us, but we're going to roast the RCCII now.
Charlie: I'll be sure to send you a full refund. Sorry about that.

They can though send the archons away or croak them. Possible fodder for uncroaking even.

[raphfrk]

So the camps are
Diminishing Shmuckers means the percent increase is small. An extra city here or their doesn't matter.

However, even then the 20th city adds just as much in real terms to GK's production as the 2nd city.

Also, if you have twice as many cities, then you should be able to maintain twice as large an army, so you could take twice as many cities in the same amount of time.

Diminishing Shmuckers refers to "upkeep" somehow. Either the decrypted have more upkeep then the cities gained or the garrisons needed aren't worth it for ruined cities and they need to rebuild. This is nothing more than a lie as the decrypted don't do upkeep.

Another option here is that there is a sliding scale as you spend more and more per turn.

This could be based on the number of units your side has.

This could explain why Charlie only has Knight class units. If the corruption scales with the number of units, then best to have a small number of powerful units rather than a large number of weak units.

Diminishing Shmuckers means more cities have less and less income. The first city makes a bunch and the 23rd makes a tiny bit. This means ruling the world is hard if your just one kingdom. You need an alliance.

Another possibility is that the level of the city manager matters. GK doesn't have enough high level warlords to cover all their cities ... though I guess with all the decrypted warlords, this wouldn't be an issue.

It really doesn't matter how the method works, all that matters is that larger sides take a penalty for being large sides.

The decrypted army, however, counts as off the books. Thus for nearly any metric, they will push up the equilibrium number of cities additional cities aren't worth taking. Worst case, taking the city prevents it being used by the enemy.

[doran]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but given all the foregoing speculation ITT I feel the need to post this.



*slinks away*

whoo Epilectic Tree, where did that come from?

[Lightbender]

What do you mean?

I literally meant the character Majora's mask. The pliers come to life and take over Wanda's body >:)

[shade]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but given all the foregoing speculation ITT I feel the need to post this.



*slinks away*

whoo Epilectic Tree, where did that come from?

Run! It's a Territorial Oak! *hides*

No, really, that's the sprite for an enemy (called the Territorial Oak) in EarthBound for SNES. It actually moves a lot slower in the game, though. It is a tree, after all.

And I do hope that Charlie does realize that Parson's got his number. And that number is-

[BLANDCorporatio]

- a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

I left alone my mind was blank
I needed time to think to get the memories from my mind

What did I see can I believe that what I saw
that night was real and not just fantasy

etc ...

[JohnD]

Just a thought...

I think people are over thinking the whole 'diminishing Schmuckers point'...

I think it's a total head fake...
Unless I missed something in previous updates no other side is aware the GK had a HUGE income boost the end of Book 1...
And has it been established that other sides know that decripted has no upkeep?

Because if these facts are still a secret then the other sides would be under the assumption that GK would be very close to their natural expansion point... Having the money for upkeep and troops...

And the 'New Titanic mandate' seems to be just a classic stall to consolidate armies to get them talking/fighting (divide and conqueur)...

[DevilDan]

"Diminishing shmuckers" is just Parson's Erf version of "the point of diminishing returns." Nothing more, nothing less. More cities means more administrative problems, more work in overseeing and defending them, more time lost in moving to attack, etc. "Don't grab more than you can hold" is an important lesson for would-be conquerors.