Book 2 – Text Updates 012

[Sinrus]

Hiai, why do you need a tinfoil hat for that idea? It's actually very plausible. What if the archons' turn came before GK's, so they veiled themselves and hid in the hex that GK's ground forces are in now? Couldn't they conceivably break out of hiding and decapitate the leadership, specifically Ansom? A few holes are present, but think about it: Jack and the decrypted archons could have blown the veil, although isn't POSSIBLE that 50-some (?) archons could cast a stronger veil than 20-some archons and a foolamancer could penetrate, especially once Jack was injured? The PROBLEM is that dusting Ansom wouldn't really solve any problems. Wanda would still be able to croak Slately and end Jetstone, and Charlie wouldn't be any closer to regaining his confidentiality.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Spoiler: show

I believe that Charlie's Archon are on their way to annihilate Ansom's ground forces.

The PROBLEM is that dusting Ansom wouldn't really solve any problems. Wanda would still be able to croak Slately and end Jetstone, and Charlie wouldn't be any closer to regaining his confidentiality.

First off, that lets-call-it pincer attack Hiai proposed is viciously clever. And you're welcome for the tfh but yeah in this case it wasn't entirely necessary.

The only problem I see with the pincer plan is that, supposedly, Jack should have spotted the veil. or maybe veil spotting needs to be done in the same hex? In that case, it's conceivable that Charlie's troops are "close" but not in the same hex, waiting for GK to end turn.

Now, the other issue of Spacerock being destroyed. This is I think, less a problem for Hiai's plan. Whether Jillian manages to keep Wanda's airforce in check or not, Charlie could in principle anihilate the fallback that GK has, of retreating its fliers to the ground column. If Spacerock falls, but Charlie can claim with witnesses that they sent troops to attack GK, that's a plus. Probably Slately was the biggest/only true anti-Charlist in the RCC2 anyway.

Of course, things become more bizzare for Charlie if Wanda and Jillian join forces.

[Menas]

Of course, things become more bizzare for Charlie if Wanda and Jillian join forces.

Unless this was what Jillian was cooking up with Charlie all along... which I believe it was. If that ends up being the case, then I believe Jillian's next move following Wanda turning to her side (assuming Wanda accepts) is going to be a masterpiece. Pure genius.

[the_tick_rules]

Wanda could always dissolve her alliance if she makes it and she doesn't like that right?

[splintermute]

Wanda could always dissolve her alliance if she makes it and she doesn't like that right?

That assumes Wanda could survive without a side to serve, which isn't necessarily a safe assumption (if she could, why didn't she break free of Stanley right after tBfGK?).

[Watsit Hoohow]

That assumes Wanda could survive without a side to serve, which isn't necessarily a safe assumption (if she could, why didn't she break free of Stanley right after tBfGK?).

Just because she didn't break with Stanley doesn't mean she couldn't make it on her own. It'd really only require some quick raiding to pay for her own upkeep and keep her forces entirely 0-upkeep decrypted. Not to mention the amazing war potential the Arkenpliers bring with them.

There are plenty of reasons why she's still with Stanley, and most of them are in resources he has exclusively. Parson and the Dwagons come to mind as valuable assets. If it means she can go out and conquer with even more can't-get-this-anywhere-else advantages, more power to that.


-

[splintermute]

That assumes Wanda could survive without a side to serve, which isn't necessarily a safe assumption (if she could, why didn't she break free of Stanley right after tBfGK?).

Just because she didn't break with Stanley doesn't mean she couldn't make it on her own. It'd really only require some quick raiding to pay for her own upkeep and keep her forces entirely 0-upkeep decrypted. Not to mention the amazing war potential the Arkenpliers bring with them.

There are plenty of reasons why she's still with Stanley, and most of them are in resources he has exclusively. Parson and the Dwagons come to mind as valuable assets. If it means she can go out and conquer with even more can't-get-this-anywhere-else advantages, more power to that.


-

It's not an upkeep issue - it's that she's not an overlord or an heir. If she breaks off, unless the pliers protect her somehow, the game mechanics dictate that she should just disband (unless she does it in the Magic Kingdom). Otherwise there's no reason Sizemore or Maggie or Jack couldn't just go solo whenever they want.

[the_tick_rules]

Wanda could always dissolve her alliance if she makes it and she doesn't like that right?

That assumes Wanda could survive without a side to serve, which isn't necessarily a safe assumption (if she could, why didn't she break free of Stanley right after tBfGK?).

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. I guess she couldn't ally but she'd need to join Faq huh? It's so hard to assume things with these two. Wanda and Jillian have a super complex relationship. We would also have to guess what Charlie would think of crusin with Wanda?

[Hiai]

Sinrus wrote:
The PROBLEM is that dusting Ansom wouldn't really solve any problems. Wanda would still be able to croak Slately and end Jetstone, and Charlie wouldn't be any closer to regaining his confidentiality.

The reason it solves CHARLIE'S problems, is that his highly identifiable unique units will be seen actively opposing GK, and specifically Wanda's decrypted troops. Voila! His reputation with his principal market, the royals, is rescued. Your worry about his "loss of confidentiality" is I think, a non-issue for Charlie. He's been around long enough that whatever insights Parson may have gotten from the decrypted Archons are likely to have been out there anyhow, if not exactly common knowledge. The only danger lies in the fact that Parson is the one person that could put it all together enough to make it an issue, but that just means he's even MORE a desirable commodity for Charlie to acquire.

Which bring me to my OTHER theory of where the Archons are:

Spoiler: show

Preparing to attack GK. This would give Charlie the exact same benefits as attacking Ansom, with the added bonus of possibly acquiring Parson, the mathamancy artifact, the Arkenhammer, some new casters, or any combination of the above. With such a large force of Stanley's dwagons with Wanda, and almost ALL of the decrypted troops as well, GK might seem like a pretty tempting, under-defended place to a guy with 600 mostly-idle Archons sitting around burning upkeep resources instead of bringing in the schmuckers. Any unit lost is merely reducing the upkeep, after all. Were it me, I'd probably think about hitting both GK and Ansom at once, wiping out two entire armies that are comparatively defenseless against air units at the moment (at least appearing so, with so many dwagons off with Wanda, and no confirmation whether Charlie knows Stanley has been augmenting his dwagons with the wild population). Take out, or even merely cripple, either one or both of these armies, and you eliminate Wanda's major threat in one masterful stroke. Even if you fail, you still demonstrate that your wares (superior war-related intel) are still highly desirable, and that you are a trustworthy contractor. It's a win-win-win scenario for Charlie on this one. If Jillian were to have some positive effect on the outcome back at Spacerock, it's mere icing on the cake, as far as Charlie is concerned.

As far as Jack spotting a veil, well Ansom and company are in a different hex now, aren't they? And as has been confirmed (thank you!), Charlie's turn comes before GK'S, so they had only to move into the adjacent hex, which it seems they might have with Jillian, and they are free to attack Ansom the second GK ends turn, by using the strategem originally conceived of by Ansom, allying with the RCC to share their turn. Jillian attacks Wanda, and Charlie attacks Ansom simultaneously. Q.E.D
Even if Jillian borks up her end of the "plan", Charlie's part has a very good chance of succeeding, so it's all win for charlie, again.

That Charlie is a bastard, isn't he?

[MonteCristo]

The reason it solves CHARLIE'S problems, is that his highly identifiable unique units will be seen actively opposing GK, and specifically Wanda's decrypted troops. Voila! His reputation with his principal market, the royals, is rescued.

Will be seen by who?
The only units that would witness charlie attacking Ansom are either GK, or jetstone units that are going to disband once Slately is croaked... no one will ever see who croaked Ansom...
And really, saving Slately's boop from certain defeat will be FAR more worthwhile as even Slately could not keep up his false statements about charlie without looking like an absolute fool.

Spoiler: show

Preparing to attack GK. This would give Charlie the exact same benefits as attacking Ansom, with the added bonus of possibly acquiring Parson, the mathamancy artifact, the Arkenhammer, some new casters, or any combination of the above. With such a large force of Stanley's dwagons with Wanda, and almost ALL of the decrypted troops as well, GK might seem like a pretty tempting, under-defended place to a guy with 600 mostly-idle Archons sitting around burning upkeep resources instead of bringing in the schmuckers. Any unit lost is merely reducing the upkeep, after all. Were it me, I'd probably think about hitting both GK and Ansom at once, wiping out two entire armies that are comparatively defenseless against air units at the moment (at least appearing so, with so many dwagons off with Wanda, and no confirmation whether Charlie knows Stanley has been augmenting his dwagons with the wild population). Take out, or even merely cripple, either one or both of these armies, and you eliminate Wanda's major threat in one masterful stroke. Even if you fail, you still demonstrate that your wares (superior war-related intel) are still highly desirable, and that you are a trustworthy contractor. It's a win-win-win scenario for Charlie on this one. If Jillian were to have some positive effect on the outcome back at Spacerock, it's mere icing on the cake, as far as Charlie is concerned.

Not a lot of problems here i think... but i do think it's wrong to assume that Charlie can dedicate that many forces to attacking GK...
Archons likely do not come cheap and charlie's only way of maintaining upkeep is through mercenary work... he may not getting any work from royls near GK, but he might still have business in other parts of the world... he must keep many of those archons working to keep paying for all of them. So he can't afford to pull them away from places where he's still getting business; not to mention we have no idea how many turns it would take them to move from the frutharest parts of the world to GK; so they might spend qquite a few turns not working and not paying for their upkeep. and i doubt he would loosen his own defences; he seems to greatly value security and thus would not want to rsik getting attacked while his archon defenders are away... all in all, i don't think charlie really has nearly as many archons that he can freely send out on personal vendettas as you might think

Furtharmore, charlie had no way of knowing how GK would act... without being able to get close to GK to see, he had no way of knowing if they were try a ground assault or an arial assault... so he had no idea that GK would be poorly defended from arial attacks. Not to mention that we don't even know how many dwagons GK has, or what kind of defences they have; while the dwagons might be away, the garrison could be full of anti-air defenders... and the capitol will benefit from Stanely's overlord and artifact bonuses... this makes it hard for him to know how to deploy his archons

As far as Jack spotting a veil, well Ansom and company are in a different hex now, aren't they? And as has been confirmed (thank you!), Charlie's turn comes before GK'S, so they had only to move into the adjacent hex, which it seems they might have with Jillian, and they are free to attack Ansom the second GK ends turn, by using the strategem originally conceived of by Ansom, allying with the RCC to share their turn. Jillian attacks Wanda, and Charlie attacks Ansom simultaneously. Q.E.D
Even if Jillian borks up her end of the "plan", Charlie's part has a very good chance of succeeding, so it's all win for charlie, again.

IF charlie had his own units in the battle space, and had his own turn, then the other sides would know... they would not know that it was charlie in particular, but they would know that "someone" a third side in this battle was taking a turn... who ever normally would go first on the given day would notice that the day started and not on their turn and KNOW that there was a third force in the battle space.

Frankly, since no one mentioned an unknown third side being present in the battlespace and taking turns, we know that Charlie is not in the battlespace... the only way charlie could have archons in the area is if the archons were given to Jillian to command... unless Jillian can add anyone she wants to the alliance without the RCC's knowledge, in which case we would be talking about charlie being allied to the RCCII and sharing his turn with theirs...

[oslecamo2]

The reason it solves CHARLIE'S problems, is that his highly identifiable unique units will be seen actively opposing GK, and specifically Wanda's decrypted troops. Voila! His reputation with his principal market, the royals, is rescued. Your worry about his "loss of confidentiality" is I think, a non-issue for Charlie. He's been around long enough that whatever insights Parson may have gotten from the decrypted Archons are likely to have been out there anyhow, if not exactly common knowledge. The only danger lies in the fact that Parson is the one person that could put it all together enough to make it an issue, but that just means he's even MORE a desirable commodity for Charlie to acquire.

If they were common knowledge, Wanda or Misty or Stanley or hell, anyone on Hamster's side would've said so.

Which bring me to my OTHER theory of where the Archons are:

Spoiler: show

Preparing to attack GK. This would give Charlie the exact same benefits as attacking Ansom, with the added bonus of possibly acquiring Parson, the mathamancy artifact, the Arkenhammer, some new casters, or any combination of the above. With such a large force of Stanley's dwagons with Wanda, and almost ALL of the decrypted troops as well, GK might seem like a pretty tempting, under-defended place to a guy with 600 mostly-idle Archons sitting around burning upkeep resources instead of bringing in the schmuckers. Any unit lost is merely reducing the upkeep, after all. Were it me, I'd probably think about hitting both GK and Ansom at once, wiping out two entire armies that are comparatively defenseless against air units at the moment (at least appearing so, with so many dwagons off with Wanda, and no confirmation whether Charlie knows Stanley has been augmenting his dwagons with the wild population). Take out, or even merely cripple, either one or both of these armies, and you eliminate Wanda's major threat in one masterful stroke. Even if you fail, you still demonstrate that your wares (superior war-related intel) are still highly desirable, and that you are a trustworthy contractor. It's a win-win-win scenario for Charlie on this one. If Jillian were to have some positive effect on the outcome back at Spacerock, it's mere icing on the cake, as far as Charlie is concerned.

Actualy, more of a win-lose-lose scenario.
1-For all that Charlie knows, Hamster can make his city explode as a freaking volcano at will. Sending troops into GK untill Charlie finds out what kind of trick was that is basicaly sending non-expendable troops to a meat burner. Plus Stanley has been making a new army of twolls and hobgobwins. They're not in the frontline with Wanda. So they're waiting in GK ready to rock out. Plus Sizemore and his army of golems. You just don't rush inside an enemy city if you don't know what's waiting inside.
2- Ansom has been advancing slowly and carefully. The chances that there were veiled archons on the way and he didn't notice them as he passed trough are basicaly zero.
3-If the attacks fail, Charlie has just lost a good chunk of his entire force. It doesn't matter if people trust him again, because he now doesn't have the means to answer contracts and keep his intelegence network working at full force. He can just pop one archon per turn! It would take hundreds of turns to recover!

As far as Jack spotting a veil, well Ansom and company are in a different hex now, aren't they? And as has been confirmed (thank you!), Charlie's turn comes before GK'S, so they had only to move into the adjacent hex, which it seems they might have with Jillian, and they are free to attack Ansom the second GK ends turn, by using the strategem originally conceived of by Ansom, allying with the RCC to share their turn. Jillian attacks Wanda, and Charlie attacks Ansom simultaneously. Q.E.D
Even if Jillian borks up her end of the "plan", Charlie's part has a very good chance of succeeding, so it's all win for charlie, again.

As pointed out, other sides are aware of whose turn it is, so veiled archons waiting in ambush are a moot point unless they're under Jillian's control. Ansom isn't the kind of dude to go down whitout a good fight, and really, what does Charlie gains from taking him down? Nobody would see it. Nobody would pay for it. Wanda is the real target here. And she has several Warlord and Eyemancer eyes watching out for veiled ambushes.

Not to say that there isn't a trap in waiting, but it's too late for veiled archons to be a realistic possibility.

Archon rush is just not a viable tactic unless you have someone with a bracelet calculating the odds for you, as archons are not only expensive, they're slow as hell to replace when you have just one city.

That Charlie is a bastard, isn't he?

Meh, he's met his match. Hamster and Wanda are even more. After all, one was humiliated and humbled, the other is now the most scary force in Erfworld right now.

[Godsire]

Sorry for asking, but does anyone know why the comic update is delayed ?

Is there a con or something else unexpected ?

[BLANDCorporatio]

Unfortunately, it appears that Erfworld is not yet lucrative enough to allow its creators to fully focus on it. Because of that, there will be an occasional day or two of schedule slippage here and there.

And I guess that's all to say about that. Mr. Balder said, back when Erfworld had its place on the OotS forums, that update schedules are not to be discussed. Makes some sense, as otherwise we'd be constantly bringing up the fact that this thing doesn't update as fast as we can turn pages.

EDIT: ....AND whaddaya know, the update is here!

[Sinrus]

Sorry for asking, but does anyone know why the comic update is delayed ?

Is there a con or something else unexpected ?

I believe the question has been rendered moot.