Book 2 – Text Updates 021

[Joe Falco]

Maybe Wanda and company will be attacked or maybe not. I'm sure Jillian will try to stop anyone from croaking Wanda just because she doesn't know if Ansom will still exist without his mistress.

...and maybe also because Jillian still cares for Wanda.

If Jillian tries to force her will on Jetstone again, perhaps the good king will ignore Jillian and do everything in his power to croak Wanda.

[kriss]

Oh what is this twisted mind of Jack's thinking? I got a shiver down my spine because if he has learned anything from Parson it is to do something to due with the unexpected. I have a feeling that he as a plan beyond just getting himself decrypted and I feel that he is more then right about the proper actions that need to be taken. Ossmer or what ever brings up a good point his father is blinded by his believed superiority and much like Ansom I feel he is going to fall for one nasty dirty tactic, so who is going to be the new Bogrol? On to the next comic!

Hmmm, this gives me a nasty idea. He aparently sends up a viel that makes them all look like Wanda and her mount, and when they living fall they get decrypted, second volly goes through and they might have just enough to get the real Wanda they ferreted out. Then the viel and displacement ends on GKs next turn, or if Wanda's body is examined (Decrypted don't leave bodies after all, so if she and her dragon are all that's left 'alive', it makes sense that thier is no corpses). They weren't where the archers/tower thought they were. A defence within a defence.

[Squishalot]

Hmmm, this gives me a nasty idea. He aparently sends up a viel that makes them all look like Wanda and her mount, and when they living fall they get decrypted, second volly goes through and they might have just enough to get the real Wanda they ferreted out. Then the viel and displacement ends on GKs next turn, or if Wanda's body is examined (Decrypted don't leave bodies after all, so if she and her dragon are all that's left 'alive', it makes sense that thier is no corpses). They weren't where the archers/tower thought they were. A defence within a defence.

Several problems:

a) Jack doesn't have enough juice to veil everybody, presumably. (Note his comments in the Text Update - 'what little juice')
b) A displacement or illusions will be obvious, when the arrows fly straight through them. See the swords swinging at illusury dwagons in page 10 (?) of the current book.
c) A veil requires something reasonably similar sized and expected to be in the area to be 'hidden' by, they can't just vanish (presumably, unless Jack is back up to full power).
d) There is no way on earth that Jetstone won't send all of their forces to scour the airspace until they're seen. Seriously - you know they've got a Master-class Foolamancer, you wouldn't leave any chance that there may still be 50-odd dwagons in your capital airspace, led by a Master-class Croakamancer and a L10 (?) (chief) warlord!

[multilis]

Unlimited ammo would equate to infinite attack power; there would have to be a hard limit on ammunition or else you could just post up a few archers and waaait to change the turn until everything in the square's dead.

Archers are going into same zone as enemy to shoot at them, so GK's side can both ranged and melee attack back.

Where it gets nasty is if unlimited ranged attack on a flying unit, these do occur in some games and can slaughter any ground force without enough ranged attack or fliers.

As well, in some games the human attacker may repeatedly attack ranged and retreat from fight to exploit wipe out some types of defenders controlled by stupid ai.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

I'm pretty sure Erfworld mechanics don't allow dead things to fly, or float in the air at least. Also I kinda doubt that Erfworld mechanics allow corpses of any sort to give a defensive bonus (i.e., act as a barricade). That'd just be cheesy.

Maybe those Haggarites weren't carrying Sammy away for reasons of honor or respect, but in order to use him as a shield if push came to shove.

But yeah, I don't know if corpes could effectivly be used to as a protective barrier for a flying force anyway. I've been assuming they will fall to the ground, and potentially out of the range of Wandas magic. Plus as I think someone else said - everyone believed Stanley's dwagon was dead when it fell. Plus in the other times we've seen dwagons dying though don't seem to have hung around in the air.

c) Wanda and co's concern isn't necessarily that they're sitting ducks for defensive spells and whatnot, they also have a concern that Jetstone will send flyers and warlords after them. Why would they be thinking about that if archers could just pepper them with arrows without fear of retribution?

I thought maybe what Wanda was saying in regards to flyers and warlords after Jack said he should be using what little juice he has to veil her - it won't work because Jetstone will use them to get warlords up for veil spotting, not so much that Jetstone plans on sending a few low/mid power flyers to attack 60 or so dwagons.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Great idea. Jetstone will have to spend twice the amount of firepower to croak the living units.

Other tactics might also minimize the damage. How about going to highest possible altitude to penalize Jetstone's shooters? Moving directly over the archers in the field to maybe impose a penalty on the tower defenses, and shoot back at the archers directly below them? Flashing the shooters so they can't target Wanda initially?

Wonder what the best solution will be?

I can't remember (I may be imagining it), but was there a point where Parson was wondering about how high a unit could fly?

[Squishalot]

Plus as I think someone else said - everyone believed Stanley's dwagon was dead when it fell. Plus in the other times we've seen dwagons dying though don't seem to have hung around in the air.

Normal hexes don't have a boundary between airspace and ground though.

I thought maybe what Wanda was saying in regards to flyers and warlords after Jack said he should be using what little juice he has to veil her - it won't work because Jetstone will use them to get warlords up for veil spotting, not so much that Jetstone plans on sending a few low/mid power flyers to attack 60 or so dwagons.

If that's the case, then King Slately wouldn't have cared whether Jillian and her air force were around at all, because he could just shoot everyone down from behind city boundaries. By having KC lead an interceptor stack, they must be assuming that they're going to be attacked directly. If nothing else, maybe Jetstone will need to bring its offensive casters into the aerial space in order to use them, similar to Sizemore needing to tunnel into the courtyard to attack.

Anyway, it's my view that Wanda and the dwagons will be able to return fire if attacked from the ground and the tower, but not move from their aerial position, based on the evidence. This means that the dragons will be able to use their breath attacks (limited usage per day/encounter, based on what we've seen in the past) but not melee. This still opens up a wide array of possible defences - blow-popping entrances to parapets and so forth.

It'd be interesting to see if decryption is a 'natural ability' or a 'spell' - after all, the Archons could use natural abilities to influence the battle for Gobwin Knob, so...

[Lamech]

If Wanda could just get to the garrison somehow, she could decrypt a bunch of fallen dwagons and wreck it, or just smack Slately. But she would need move to do that. Jillian has tried to capture and turn Jack right? It occurs that if Wanda looked like Jack she might end up in the space square were she could croak Slately or raise her dwagons.

It'd be interesting to see if decryption is a 'natural ability' or a 'spell' - after all, the Archons could use natural abilities to influence the battle for Gobwin Knob, so...

If Wanda can decrypt units not in the airspace the battle should be short and quick. Some dwagons accidentally get stabbed in the head, and then get decrypted on the tower and roast Slately. Wanda should definitly test that.

[kriss]

If Wanda could just get to the garrison somehow, she could decrypt a bunch of fallen dwagons and wreck it, or just smack Slately. But she would need move to do that. Jillian has tried to capture and turn Jack right? It occurs that if Wanda looked like Jack she might end up in the space square were she could croak Slately or raise her dwagons.

It'd be interesting to see if decryption is a 'natural ability' or a 'spell' - after all, the Archons could use natural abilities to influence the battle for Gobwin Knob, so...

If Wanda can decrypt units not in the airspace the battle should be short and quick. Some dwagons accidentally get stabbed in the head, and then get decrypted on the tower and roast Slately. Wanda should definitly test that.

Or better yet, focus all attacks on bringing down the tower, which if I recal is in the airspace.

[Gez]

Typo in "his let his mind".

[Trotsky]

Why are so many people assuming that the dwagons can't fire back?

Consider:

a) The entire city area is still just one hex.

b) The idea that city boundaries are one-directional isn't in keeping with TBS games - if the archers can shoot at the dwagons, then the dwagons should be able to shoot at the archers.

c) Wanda and co's concern isn't necessarily that they're sitting ducks for defensive spells and whatnot, they also have a concern that Jetstone will send flyers and warlords after them. Why would they be thinking about that if archers could just pepper them with arrows without fear of retribution?

...

Anyway, it's my view that Wanda and the dwagons will be able to return fire if attacked from the ground and the tower, but not move from their aerial position, based on the evidence. This means that the dragons will be able to use their breath attacks (limited usage per day/encounter, based on what we've seen in the past) but not melee. This still opens up a wide array of possible defences - blow-popping entrances to parapets and so forth.

However, you must also consider that the Archons attacking GW in book 1 could not directly assist Ansom by attacking the ground force, despite parson having Maggie casting disruption spells on them. You could argue that only the Archons being targeted could fight back, but that seems overly complicated and rather silly (which does not mean it couldn't be the case). Taking that into consideration, the evidence seems to point more towards Archers being limited in some fashion as to the damage they can deal to Wanda's group and that it is insufficient to guarantee her death, requiring the direct attack of flying units.

If this is the case, then the best course of action (for the RCC II) would be to pepper them with arrows and, once the archers have killed what they can, send in the air units. This operates under the assumption that time is not a limiting factor.

P.S.
I notice that Jack refers to Parson as "his Lord" (emphasis added). I also notice that there have been no conspiracy theories based solely on this statement. The decrypted are loyal to Wanda, the living are loyal to Parson, and Stanley is loyal to himself.

[SteveMB]

c) A veil requires something reasonably similar sized and expected to be in the area to be 'hidden' by, they can't just vanish (presumably, unless Jack is back up to full power).

This wouldn't be a problem -- one dwagon with a rider is probably close enough to another dwagon wtih a rider so that Jack could make them all look like Wanda on her dwagon and prevent the enemy from specifically targeting her. The "what juice I have" comment suggests that he can't generate more than a few decoys right now, though.

[KiltedNinja]

Habitually, he sought out the lines and dots of the scenery, the little hooks that other minds used to build their idea of the world around them.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but it almost sounds like Jack sees the world in a totally different way - well, of course, but I mean beyond his bizarre, semi-sane individual outlook. Are foolamancers like Neo, seeing the code behind the world?

I think this was discussed in Jack's previous "viewpoint" Text Update. Basically, Foolamancy involves looking at the world as objectively as possible - without assigning any meaning to it or trying to create any narrative out of it - and then, at the same time, being able to look at it from another person's viewpoint, the way they would see it. (The vast differences that become apparent with this approach is cited as one reason why so many Foolamancers seem a bit off their rockers to others.)

The first thing that came to mind when I read this line in the update, was Delaunay Triangulation. I have no idea why.

[Ansan Gotti]

P.S.
I notice that Jack refers to Parson as "his Lord" (emphasis added). I also notice that there have been no conspiracy theories based solely on this statement. The decrypted are loyal to Wanda, the living are loyal to Parson, and Stanley is loyal to himself.

That's a good catch. I like it, and I do think it's telling!

[kriss]

New Foolamancer trick, dealing with firing arcs. As you know, arrows arc in flight, which can be used for a nast trick or two. Let's set up a hypothetical grid...

T 1 2
T
T W
T 3 4 W

T is the tower, 1-4 represent airial quadrents, and W is the wall. Now then, a displacement would be useful if it looked like it was in an unlinked quadrant. 2 is the only one they can arc shots through, and from thier it's either to 4 if they aim high and 3 if they aim mid to low. A simple trick would send a displacement to area 4, but have it look like a genuine move. A smart comander wiuld arc the fire through 2 to hit 4, esentialy clearing two quadrents at once, revealing it's a displacement but also eliminating an area they could be hidden without taking the risk that it was a double bluff and they really were in 4. For his next volly he'd arc to 3 through 2 to cover the widest area of 3 possible. If they still don't hit, the enemy would be in 1 and so you target there. Or so he'd think. To quote a joke about a similar setup with a villain, the 4th one was fake, resulting in the villain taunting 'What, you didn't think I'd move?" The trick is to have the units be in 3 to begin with. Once they first volley is over, move to where your proven illusionary doubls are and that space is going to be ignored for the next couple of vollies. The trick is then to move back and forth in the air-hex between zones 3 and 4 as needed. Arc vollies will still probably be used to cut down on hidding area giving the GK units some time to book it, but a direct volly would blow the trick. An alternative to moving between 3 and 4 constantly is to throw 1 in there on occassion to really mess with them. I'm not sure if air-defences could be fooled, and if they can Jetstone would probably just fill the full airspace with blasts to finally flush them out. However, they'd have to waste a lot of shots to do that, though with radiating defence shots 3 would be an ideal hiding place to minimize radiant exposure from the top of the tower. In the case of arking shots, 3 is still ideal as it enables you to dodge all but the short shots, and if the defense is spread thin enough you might even be able to dodge some of the shots.

[Trotsky]

New Foolamancer trick, dealing with firing arcs. As you know, arrows arc in flight, which can be used for a nast trick or two. Let's set up a hypothetical grid...

T 1 2
T
T W
T 3 4 W

T is the tower, 1-4 represent airial quadrents, and W is the wall. Now then, a displacement would be useful if it looked like it was in an unlinked quadrant. 2 is the only one they can arc shots through, and from thier it's either to 4 if they aim high and 3 if they aim mid to low. A simple trick would send a displacement to area 4, but have it look like a genuine move. A smart comander wiuld arc the fire through 2 to hit 4, esentialy clearing two quadrents at once, revealing it's a displacement but also eliminating an area they could be hidden without taking the risk that it was a double bluff and they really were in 4. For his next volly he'd arc to 3 through 2 to cover the widest area of 3 possible. If they still don't hit, the enemy would be in 1 and so you target there. Or so he'd think. To quote a joke about a similar setup with a villain, the 4th one was fake, resulting in the villain taunting 'What, you didn't think I'd move?" The trick is to have the units be in 3 to begin with. Once they first volley is over, move to where your proven illusionary doubls are and that space is going to be ignored for the next couple of vollies. The trick is then to move back and forth in the air-hex between zones 3 and 4 as needed. Arc vollies will still probably be used to cut down on hidding area giving the GK units some time to book it, but a direct volly would blow the trick. An alternative to moving between 3 and 4 constantly is to throw 1 in there on occassion to really mess with them. I'm not sure if air-defences could be fooled, and if they can Jetstone would probably just fill the full airspace with blasts to finally flush them out. However, they'd have to waste a lot of shots to do that, though with radiating defence shots 3 would be an ideal hiding place to minimize radiant exposure from the top of the tower. In the case of arking shots, 3 is still ideal as it enables you to dodge all but the short shots, and if the defense is spread thin enough you might even be able to dodge some of the shots.

Or they could just split their archers into 4 groups that each shoot a different location.

[effataigus]

This cost no move, but its only effect was to determine which archers could hit them. And on whose heads their corpses would fall, Jack supposed. But of course, Decrypted leave no corpses. Hm.

To me this means that dead bodies will indeed cross zone boundaries. What then happens to the living riding the dead bodies? Is a mounted unit considered one and the same with the mount for the purposes of when they die? Clearly not with Wanda's unipeg (and probably Ansom's spidew( )). Every time a rider has fallen they have (or at least appeared to have) hit the ground (Bogroll, Wanda, Ansom), been caught (Jillian, Jack), or started flying under their own volition (Stanley). Of those that have hit the ground, Ansom was on turn and Bogroll and Wanda crossed city zones in a friendly city. So, this takes us to an unprecedented situation! If bodies fall with their riders then there is all kinds of mischief potential.

The only option I can think of that wouldn't take a rider across the zone boundary would be if the mount's body passes through the boundary but the rider's does not. Of course another interpretation would be "on whose heads their corpses would fall at the start of GK's turn." These sound silly, but no sillier than turn based warfare!

It sounds like we won't find out as long as Wanda is decrypting all of the first-time-diers as they fall though.

This would be a good time to test out Parson's brick-dropping theory... if only they had a Twoll up there to make bricks for them.

effataigus wrote:
{clarified} whether is Sylvia source of ideas or just bonuses and intense glares.

*eye-daggers*

Wh-, huh? Pff! Fine, but one of these days GK will have to win a staring competition, and even Jack may need some help. And then we'll see, I tell ya!

Hahah! If GK can turn this into a staring contest then they are set. Between Sylvia, Jack, and Wanda...

Super-Jack theory: Jack dies, is decrypted with full juice, fakes his own second death (giving a spectacle of having a bunch of fake illusions vanish as his decrypted body turns to ash) then fakes Wanda's death (giving a good spectacle of decrypted turning to dust). No bodies to inspect... then they just have to survive a bunch of warlord's eyes, Charlescomm's turn, and Stanley's wrath over the decrypted dwagons.

EDIT, regardless of what happens, good luck Xin. Something tells me this is going to be a hard panel to draw!

[Ditto]

Archers are going into same zone as enemy to shoot at them, so GK's side can both ranged and melee attack back.

The city is one hex

The city is only one hex if it's a friendly city. Defenders can move freely, but attackers must expend move to switch zones, ergo crossing an intra-city hex boundary. Archers can shoot anywhere in the city because it's all the same to them, but GK's team is stuck dealing with only forces that are in the city airspace - like Jillian's group, which Jillian specifically dissuaded Wanda from tangling with because it was a possibility.

[HandofShadows]

I wonder how long before Parson has TBM and tanks/lanships for GK.......

[splintermute]

Super-Jack theory: Jack dies, is decrypted with full juice, fakes his own second death (giving a spectacle of having a bunch of fake illusions vanish as his decrypted body turns to ash) then fakes Wanda's death (giving a good spectacle of decrypted turning to dust). No bodies to inspect... then they just have to survive a bunch of warlord's eyes, Charlescomm's turn, and Stanley's wrath over the decrypted dwagons.

I was thinking of something similar. The problem is, even if everything is decrypted, the one corpse RCC II is going to need to see and touch is Wanda's.

Anyway, it's my view that Wanda and the dwagons will be able to return fire if attacked from the ground and the tower, but not move from their aerial position, based on the evidence. This means that the dragons will be able to use their breath attacks (limited usage per day/encounter, based on what we've seen in the past) but not melee. This still opens up a wide array of possible defences - blow-popping entrances to parapets and so forth.

It'd be interesting to see if decryption is a 'natural ability' or a 'spell' - after all, the Archons could use natural abilities to influence the battle for Gobwin Knob, so...

Where have we seen dwagons with limited breath attacks?

Also, I don't think it makes a difference if it's a natural ability or spell - the archons were able to use their illusions, but their attacks/magic couldn't cross the zone boundary. A caster (if the archons happened to be carrying one at the time) would have been in the same situation.

GK's situation right now is most analogous to that of the archons at tBfGK after Charlie ended turn - whatever limitations applied to them also apply to Wanda's dwagon squad now.