Book 2 – Text Updates 023

[Reclaimer]

You don't succeed simply by counting on higher numbers alone. Eventually the poor use of troops or the lack of good tactics is felt. I don't much care about Tramennis's personal attack, I care far more about his tactical acumen and his bonus. He's not a diplomat by his own choice, we've learned. Slately picked him for that job because of his brains. He's proven that... even if it does get tiring to always be right.

Tram's Attack is incredibly important here, since this fight is going to boil down to his max stack vs. two max stacks of high-level heavies led by Ford and Twenty. This isn't Exalted; his massive infantry force doesn't give him an armor bonus or anything, in fact he himself has no bonuses at all.

I'd say that Ford's tactic is to not care about his troops surviving and attacking units that would pose a threat to Wanda.

And the only unit that fits that description is Tramennis, unless you're indicating they'd throw away their whole element of surprise on the handful of low-level warlords leading his massed infantry.

[cdrcjsn]

You know, GK has another huge resource that hasn't really been discussed much.

They're rich.

They're filthy stinking rich. Perhaps the richest side on Erfworld according to Sizemore.

What does Charlie want (other than not being croaked)? Money to produce more Archons.

What if Parson makes a truce with Charlie for a set amount of time (say, 50 turns or so) and hires him to help out Wanda in exchange for an obscene amount of gold?

Will Charlie go for it? After Parson points out that Wanda has a higher than 50/50 chance of survival (thanks to Jack's tactical advice and knowledge gleaned from his bracers)? And that Parson knows that Charlie is behind the attacks and undermining of GK, but hasn't told Stanley...yet?

I know the turn order is out of whack for Charlie to send in Archons before Wanda is attacked. But if Charlie allies with GK, maybe he'll be able to do something involving Thinkamancy at range?

Anyhoo, just more speculation. I just keep wondering what Parson plans on doing with the info that Charlie has been working behind the scenes against GK.

[effataigus]

Or the Kingworld spell has a flaw- units do not 'refresh' at the start of a Kingworld turn- no healing (no way to tell, everyone was full healed already), no upkeep cost (no mention of the treasury either way), no food pop (only an off hand comment in a text update). Just a new set of movement points and the initiative again.

I really like this idea of Kingworld having a flaw other than, supposedly, draining enough juice from the caster(s) for two turns (despite Vanna turning around and still have enough juice to attemp to turn Ansom).

I like it too, but I don't believe it. Trammenis got de-gummed at the start of turn. Not healing per se, but it's similar enough that it would be weird for it to not be part of the same refresh.

I also don't have faith in Hagar turning simply because I can't see how they could make their situation any better by it... or Charlie's situation any worse than when they first got shang-hai'd into attacking GK. If they hurt Jetstone too much now they'll get clobbered by GK later... even if they don't take any losses.

That said, Sizemore might yet convince Parson to get more involved, and Parson might find some carrot or stick to get Hagar to bat for GK... just not seeing it yet.

I'm thinking Sizemore, Parson, and Jack are the three wild cards might yet get GK out of this immediate mess. I'm also curious what Ace Charlie has up his sleeve. His units are spread far and wide, but I'd be surprised if he didn't have a handful of archons handy nearby to bully whatever fraction of GK survives the night... if any. Wanda never did follow Parson's advice and scout out the nearby hexes.

And the only unit that fits that description is Tramennis, unless you're indicating they'd throw away their whole element of surprise on the handful of low-level warlords leading his massed infantry.

They are pretty badly outnumbered... I wouldn't be too surprised if Ford's tactic doesn't do much good. Perhaps it will, but it would be odd if a critical plot point hinged on the clever thinking of a character with two appearances in two text updates... admittedly Rob might be in the "attacking GK is a bad idea" camp and therefore attribute Tram's death to Jillian's intentionally bad advice. I'm not in that camp though, so I don't buy it!

[DevilDan]

Tram's Attack is incredibly important here, since this fight is going to boil down to his max stack vs. two max stacks of high-level heavies led by Ford and Twenty. This isn't Exalted; his massive infantry force doesn't give him an armor bonus or anything, in fact he himself has no bonuses at all.

Well, that and the fact that Ford's forces are thoroughly outnumbered. There's not a lot of trickery here: Ford will let infantry enter the hex because that would theoretically allow the archers and casters — Ford's targets of choice — to enter after them. If Tramennis and the infantry is lost, the rest will be recalled to Spacerock and the battle against Wanda.

I'd say that Ford's tactic is to not care about his troops surviving and attacking units that would pose a threat to Wanda.

And the only unit that fits that description is Tramennis, unless you're indicating they'd throw away their whole element of surprise on the handful of low-level warlords leading his massed infantry.

It's not clear to me that, plotmancy aside, Ford has anything approaching an "out" here or anything in his favor at all — except for Tramennis's decision not to employ casters and archers. His only hope is to be able to eliminate a significant percentage of Tramennis's warlords.

[gazes_also]

You know, GK has another huge resource that hasn't really been discussed much.

They're rich.

They're filthy stinking rich. Perhaps the richest side on Erfworld according to Sizemore.

What does Charlie want (other than not being croaked)? Money to produce more Archons.

What if Parson makes a truce with Charlie for a set amount of time (say, 50 turns or so) and hires him to help out Wanda in exchange for an obscene amount of gold?

Will Charlie go for it? After Parson points out that Wanda has a higher than 50/50 chance of survival (thanks to Jack's tactical advice and knowledge gleaned from his bracers)? And that Parson knows that Charlie is behind the attacks and undermining of GK, but hasn't told Stanley...yet?

I know the turn order is out of whack for Charlie to send in Archons before Wanda is attacked. But if Charlie allies with GK, maybe he'll be able to do something involving Thinkamancy at range?

Anyhoo, just more speculation. I just keep wondering what Parson plans on doing with the info that Charlie has been working behind the scenes against GK.

Finally a theory worth discussing.
Charlie doesn't want Parson to know he's involved in this fight. This maybe because he wants open lines of communication with him.
Parson may suspect that Charlie is involved, but what does that get him? Offering him a truce in return for a huge amount of smuckers, maybe enticing, but if GK has achieved a dominant position by the time the truce runs out, Charlie could be worse off. The calculation would then be how much would enable Charlie to produce and support enough Archons to break even against the triumphant GK? That would probably be more than GK can afford or Stanley would agree to.

Parson volunteers the stats on Wanda's chance of survival as part of the negotiation.
If Wanda is likely to be croaked, GK will be weaker and has less potential for total domination in 50 turns. Charlie could be bought for less, but why make the deal since he can just take part in smashing a weakened enemy?
If Wanda is likely to survive, GK will be stronger and may achieve total domination in 50 turns. Charlie has just priced himself out of the market as the cost would be astronomical to stand up alone against GK. Also, Charlie's turn comes first in the next day, if he's reasonably sure of Wanda's survival in a greatly depleted force, then he can swoop in and grab her and any surviving decrypt Archons.
That makes Wanda's chances of survival way too valuable intel for Parson to hand it over with no guarantees.

No, don't see this deal as advantageous or doable for either side

[djones520]

Also, Charlie's turn comes first in the next day, if he's reasonably sure of Wanda's survival in a greatly depleted force, then he can swoop in and grab her and any surviving decrypt Archons.

Think you just hit the nail on the head of whats about to happen.

[effataigus]

Hrm... back to an old subject then...

What does GK know about whether there are any of Charlie's units in the GK battlespace?

GK goes before RCC2 and Charlie goes before GK. If Charlie gets a turn before GK then GK might realize that Charlie has units nearby. This gives me several questions:

1. Was there ever an authoritative definition of "battlespace." Some people insist that it means "hex." I and a couple of others are guessing it refers to a list of the units that could conceivably move into your hex and attack you on their turn rather than a "space" per se... or perhaps it is the area of land in which there exists a unit that could move to your location and attack you. If you're curious why I'm curious: http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F144.jpg

2. If Charlie does have units in the battlespace, can Charlie take his move so fast that GK wouldn't even realize that there was a turn before theirs? The length of time it took (from Parson's perspective) Stanley to go from his fake woods (same link above) to the GK ruins suggests that this might be the case. I can't fully fathom Erfworld time though, so maybe not. Also, we got to see the Charlie-turn in question from Hillary/Lindsay's perspective... didn't seem like an imperceptible time (from the archons' perspectives).

3. Would anyone care/notice?... phrased differently, does Charlie always have units nearby making the observation that someone else went first kinda irrelevant? Heck, Charlie got ~14 archons to GK's doorstep at a moment's notice back in book one, so perhaps it's just plain unremarkable that Charlie took their turn before GK.

I drool over the idea of Wanda getting bullied into leaving GK for Charlescomm. Given Wanda's recent misigivings I'm guessing all it would take is Charlie promising to tell Wanda what the 4th arkentool is... if anything. I'm betting this would trigger a war the likes of which Erfworld has never seen. Two huge arkentool-armed sides led by two brilliant *edit* tacticians... that, if anything, will be a war to end wars... just like WWI!

[joosy]

I am still waiting for the "missing gobwin gambit" that Charlie is engineering. I bet you a buncha schmuckers its involved in the mystery surrounding the gobwin revolt and King Saline IV's demise. We've already seen what influence has with turning natural allies (unless that was Vanna's doing) so we know it is possible. If Charlie was able to keep Parson and Stanley occupied wth a suprise attack it would certainly limit Wanda and Ford's help from Parson's mind. They both have some wonderful plans but the aren't quite up to Parson's level.

My suggestion would be:

See if a side can name a Chief Warlord more than once a turn and if it is prohibitivly expensive. We already know that it can be done off-turn (Trammenis, e.g.)

IF it can be done and is feasible, then name Ford Chief Warlord and see what damage he can do against Trammenis' forces by focusing on leadership only.

Then after he 'falls down the airplane stairs" or whatever euphemism for death you prefer, name Ossomer Chief Warlord. Have Jack deliberately disguise "expendable" units to look like Ossomer and Wanda to focus attacks away from the main targets and get them to waste arrows, shockmancy, and whatever other attacks they have. As the 'live' dwagons become decrypted they will gain Wanda's bonus and become even harder to kill. (assuming leadership and Croakamancer bonuses' apply to defense as well as attack) However, we'vealready been given a taste of how creative Jack can be (the battle of the pass) so I admit my suggestion is rather blase given his level of skill. Hopefully Rob has some much cooler and imaginative uses for Jack. Rob has been conserving Jack's power for a reason, you know

But, we know that something horrible is about to happen which is going to force Parson to lead. One possibility is that Stanley is going to either order Parson to do it or Stanley is going to be otherwise occupied or incapacitated and Parson has to step up. (see the Gobwin insurgency mentioned above as a possibility).
He may have to decide to do it to save Wanda and Jack as well.
We will see.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

I've got a wondering - what is Warlord I. Brows up to? We haven't seen him since he got the Dittomancer to pull himself together... I hope we see him again, he had his head screwed on right.

Regular units are almost always *killed* rather than turned, even *after* they surrender.

My memory is a bit vague on the subject, but is the reference in the comic to that somewhere? We haven't seen that many regular units captured, though after Caesar's near fatal last battle apparently TV had some 100+ infantry prisoners and we never learnt their fate, but it didn't sound like they were being executed at the time.

And Jack's comments about skulls being the new shackles when observing the prison with Parson sounded like units weren't always killed instantly when they surrendered.

Nah, I suspect we'll see a massacre on the next page. Jetstone will easily destroy them and the worst that could possibly happen to Trem is a black eye.

Well, that is what I think (and kind of hope as well) but I can be a pessimist sometimes. It looks like Jetstone should win handily, but if someone falls I expect it will be poor old Antium (though I hope not).

Just a random thought:
I'm surprised how determined and limited the Jetstone warlords are in their choice of tactics. They see a infantry battle and want to fight it. All three princes seem to be quite similar in their taste. Old Ossomer and Ansom extensively fought with this strategy.

To be fair I guess it was what they had to work with and it worked, time and time again, just like TV and Faq seem to be predominantly air powers.

But repopped Ansom deviated from it and developed a pretty smart bluff. Could it be that decrypting does more than simply change loyalty? Maybe it also breaks other limitations and settings, like royal conceit or a sides preference for certain tactics. Ansom was pretty creative before as seen in book 1, but he only chose new tactics when it was necessary. Now he implemented something new from the beginning, even if he could have gone for the classic infantry strategy.

I think it could be a few things, more then decrypting playing a part (since Oss and Sylvia don't seem to think outside the box) - First Ansom has always been a good planner, and then he got new toys in the form of dwagons and a foolamancer. Second he knows better then anyone the strengths and limitations of Jetstone's warlords and could set up something to take advantage of them. Lastly GK's never really came off as an infantry side. Ansom has had to adapt to Stanley's style, plus how Wanda was conducting her war of conversion/decryption, never which favor masses of infantry it seems.

Tram has what seems to be good strategy of using heavies to aim for 0 losses, biggest risk I see is Hagar. If Hagar have legally binding non aggression deal with Charlie now and enough left including leadership they could promote a new chief warlord and immediately backstab to first capture casters, then slaughter unlead stacks. Done well this would also be revenge on Charlie as could drag his reputation into mud.

I don't know, the whole reason Haggar was in such a position to begin with was because Charlie made a very impressive threat. We don't even know if Sammy contacted his father before agreeing to Charlie's request, or if Dickie has a hot line to them (such as magic hats or thinkamancer to know his son is dead plus the current status of Jetstone's forces). Clearly Sammy was unwilling enough to call his bluff that he was willing to risk himself and most of his army. I don't know if Captain Overpants was promoted to chief that he would do things differently.

Haggar lost some forces we don't know how many. They were originally strong enough to stall GK, described as huge stack.

Jetstone was planning on stalling Ansom long enough for Haggar to arrive (and they had strong suspicions of Haggar anyway), I don't think Haggar was meant to do any stalling.

They don't need to move. All the units they need to hit are already in the hex, or have to go through their hex anyway.

True, but the question is to what end (other then spite)? Originally they were gambling on defeating a battered victor and thus taking Spacerock for themselves. Now, with Sammy dead, if they don't have the forces necessary to defeat the GK/Jetstone they are just wasting more men and risking their capital if they believe Charlie can do what he says he can. All they get out of that is the knowledge they may have screwed Jetstone over as their final act on Erf.

On the other hand Jetstone appears to be on the up and up. It doesn't look like Trem is going to get them to fight anymore, so all they have to do is wait for them to win and they can go home and live to fight another day. Or wait to assess the situation when GK/Jetstone have finished killing each other there.

Anyway, Jetstone's always won because of sheer number of troops coupled with fat Leadership bonuses rather than a small corps of elite specialty units.

I don't know if we should limit it to just that - while that was apparently one of the pillers of their success Ansom was the foremost strategic thinking in Erfworld, and no one seemed to disagree.

And the only unit that fits that description is Tramennis, unless you're indicating they'd throw away their whole element of surprise on the handful of low-level warlords leading his massed infantry.

Hmmm, maybe, although Trem isn't likely to be way out in front of like Ansom was when he Megalode, or Sammy when he got piked and the GK-bbers can't wait forever - it would be like someone said in the previous thread "sorry, can't attack you, if you'll just let me past I'm trying to get to your chief warlord back there", GK's two warlords and handful of heavies are significantly outnumbered by Jetstones warlords and heavies after all.

I guess when they see Trem every single one of them could rush at him and try to fight towards him, which might be hairy for a moment, but would leave them even more open to all the warlords and heavies they aren't concentrating on.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

I am still waiting for the "missing gobwin gambit" that Charlie is engineering. I bet you a buncha schmuckers its involved in the mystery surrounding the gobwin revolt and King Saline IV's demise. We've already seen what influence has with turning natural allies (unless that was Vanna's doing) so we know it is possible. If Charlie was able to keep Parson and Stanley occupied wth a suprise attack it would certainly limit Wanda and Ford's help from Parson's mind. They both have some wonderful plans but the aren't quite up to Parson's level.

My suggestion would be:

See if a side can name a Chief Warlord more than once a turn and if it is prohibitivly expensive. We already know that it can be done off-turn (Trammenis, e.g.)

IF it can be done and is feasible, then name Ford Chief Warlord and see what damage he can do against Trammenis' forces by focusing on leadership only.

Then after he 'falls down the airplane stairs" or whatever euphemism for death you prefer, name Ossomer Chief Warlord. Have Jack deliberately disguise "expendable" units to look like Ossomer and Wanda to focus attacks away from the main targets and get them to waste arrows, shockmancy, and whatever other attacks they have. As the 'live' dwagons become decrypted they will gain Wanda's bonus and become even harder to kill. (assuming leadership and Croakamancer bonuses' apply to defense as well as attack) However, we'vealready been given a taste of how creative Jack can be (the battle of the pass) so I admit my suggestion is rather blase given his level of skill. Hopefully Rob has some much cooler and imaginative uses for Jack. Rob has been conserving Jack's power for a reason, you know

But, we know that something horrible is about to happen which is going to force Parson to lead. One possibility is that Stanley is going to either order Parson to do it or Stanley is going to be otherwise occupied or incapacitated and Parson has to step up. (see the Gobwin insurgency mentioned above as a possibility).
He may have to decide to do it to save Wanda and Jack as well.
We will see.

Indeed, so much interesting stuff in the future it seems.

I'm curious as to how Trem will respond to the situation you described. Especially in terms of killing dwagons just leading to them getting back up even harder to kill again.

[DevilDan]

I can think of plenty of reasons for Charlie to want to be off Parson's radar that don't involve the eventual sale of services — not that Charlie wouldn't consider selling his services to GK, though he's surely canny enough to know that Stanley would never allow it.

Charlie would hire himself out to GK, as long as he were sure that GK would eventually fall anyway. In the long term, however, GK is bad for business and very bad for Charlescomm. GK's success means fewer and fewer low-grade conflicts and short-term missions for his archons, which are surely more profitable than large conflagrations that mean long-term contracts and large numbers lost. Higher markup in retail than selling in bulk!

And the royals would be unlikely to take Charlie on because of his usefulness in the past and the strength of his defenses. Sure, there could be an anti-Tool backlash in the wake of the current conflict, but Charlie is already attempting to redeem his reputation. And Erf is large enough for Charlie to find another place to hide away from royals who would bear him the most ill will. What he wouldn't be able to hide from is a continent-spanning GK empire.

To Dancing C: The mention of skulls as shackles is a transparent reference to decryption, not to literal shackles. The skulls of decrypted uniforms represent the decrypteds' bondage to Wanda and the arkenpliers.

[effataigus]

To Dancing C: The mention of skulls as shackles is a transparent reference to decryption, not to literal shackles. The skulls of decrypted uniforms represent the decrypteds' bondage to Wanda and the arkenpliers.

Not to speak for Dancing C, but I think he just meant to point out that if skulls are the new shackles, then shackles were the old shackles. This is relevant to the point that he was making that we don't see much evidence to suggest that regular infantry are typically summarily executed after surrendering. No need to shackle the dead.

[DevilDan]

We always knew that some units were interrogated or turned. But yes, I may have missed the point.

[gazes_also]

Hmmm, maybe, although Trem isn't likely to be way out in front of like Ansom was when he Megalode, or Sammy when he got piked and the GK-bbers can't wait forever - it would be like someone said in the previous thread "sorry, can't attack you, if you'll just let me past I'm trying to get to your chief warlord back there", GK's two warlords and handful of heavies are significantly outnumbered by Jetstones warlords and heavies after all.

I guess when they see Trem every single one of them could rush at him and try to fight towards him, which might be hairy for a moment, but would leave them even more open to all the warlords and heavies they aren't concentrating on.

Exactly, GK is having it's tactics and target dictated to it. There is no element of surprise and they are out numbered. Not a good place to be.

[effataigus]

Yeah, Tram is probably safe. I do think he might underestimate the zeal of the decrypted though. If he is assuming that GK will fight to inflict the maximum traditional damage then he might never see an insane suicide blitz coming.

[ftl]

Yeah, Tram is probably safe. I do think he might underestimate the zeal of the decrypted though. If he is assuming that GK will fight to inflict the maximum traditional damage then he might never see an insane suicide blitz coming.

Thing is, conventional units in Erf would also be able to do the same kind of suicidal tactics. They're all going to croak anyway, so it's a question of what's more valuable - inflicting maximum casualties, or inflicting casualties of highest-value targets. The decrypted aren't doing anything right now that a standard army wouldn't also do - except that they're caring about Wanda rather than Stanley, but at the moment their goals go together.

[noxharrington]

Technically the term is "card sharp" rather than "card shark". But like misheard lyrics ("Don't bring me down, Bruce!") its is so frequently misused as to have gained a life on its own.

I am reminded of "you've got another think coming" (as opposed to 'thing.')

I'm a little disappointed there are no ROUS's

Which, really, should be "RsOUS."

[DevilDan]

I'm a little disappointed there are no ROUS's

Which, really, should be "RsOUS."

Depends on your style manual. I dunno, how do you write the initialism for "Weapons of Mass Destruction?"

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Tram's Attack is incredibly important here, since this fight is going to boil down to his max stack vs. two max stacks of high-level heavies led by Ford and Twenty. This isn't Exalted; his massive infantry force doesn't give him an armor bonus or anything, in fact he himself has no bonuses at all.

That is an interesting point, I'm curious as well. I guess it can't be too bad - Slately didn't have a problem putting him on the front lines with Oss. It could have just been a "well, things are desperate, we need every sword down there" situation, but Slately doesn't seem the type who'd just throw his sons away, if Trem couldn't hold his own he'd have kept him back in capital as "reserves".

And considering the whole plan was for the Jetstone forces to hold GK up and then fall back when Haggar arrived anyway if Trem's attack wasn't all that good he probably wouldn't have made that much difference in the delaying action, so no use risking him (although it could be he was there to be the brain to Oss's brawn, and he'd have hung back).

Thing is, conventional units in Erf would also be able to do the same kind of suicidal tactics. They're all going to croak anyway, so it's a question of what's more valuable - inflicting maximum casualties, or inflicting casualties of highest-value targets. The decrypted aren't doing anything right now that a standard army wouldn't also do - except that they're caring about Wanda rather than Stanley, but at the moment their goals go together.

True, true.

Not to speak for Dancing C, but I think he just meant to point out that if skulls are the new shackles, then shackles were the old shackles. This is relevant to the point that he was making that we don't see much evidence to suggest that regular infantry are typically summarily executed after surrendering. No need to shackle the dead.

Yes, that is exactly what I was getting at.

We always knew that some units were interrogated or turned. But yes, I may have missed the point.

Heh, I should make more of an effort to make my points clearer.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Regular units are almost always *killed* rather than turned, even *after* they surrender.

My memory is a bit vague on the subject, but is the reference in the comic to that somewhere? We haven't seen that many regular units captured, though after Caesar's near fatal last battle apparently TV had some 100+ infantry prisoners and we never learnt their fate, but it didn't sound like they were being executed at the time.

And Jack's comments about skulls being the new shackles when observing the prison with Parson sounded like units weren't always killed instantly when they surrendered.

The wiki page "Capturing" is a bit skimpy on sources, but eventually I found one of Parson's Klogs, in which he claims that capture is (usually) reserved for valuable Casters.