Book 2 – Parson’s Klog 002

[gazes_also]

How quickly would JS realize not to touch the wounded or incapacitated and just dust the decrypted? Tram would figure that out PDQ.

The dropping to the ground theory has major tactical flaws and even bigger strategic ones.

Tactically, dwagons are a formidable aerial heavies - on the ground JS's golems would be more than a match for them. Same goes for the force as a whole. As an aerial strike force - very impressive, on the ground against the massed forces of JS - mincemeat.

Strategically, would be a HUGE mistake. Strategic objective number 1 - Save Wanda. Going to ground would risk injuring her or croaking her, and then her force would be vulnerable to all JS weaponry, not just projectiles, and so their ability to absorb the limited stock of arrows etc is reduced.
Then suppose Wanda outlasts the attack and gets to the next turn. She's on the ground, surrounded and quite possibly without a dwagon to get away on.

This is a battle of attrition, attenuate JS's ability to take down GK's units before GK is completely depleted. Any form of attack that doesn't yield better than, say a 4:1 or 5:1 croakrate isn't going to be worth it.

[Lamech]

How quickly would JS realize not to touch the wounded or incapacitated and just dust the decrypted? Tram would figure that out PDQ.

The dropping to the ground theory has major tactical flaws and even bigger strategic ones.

Tactically, dwagons are a formidable aerial heavies - on the ground JS's golems would be more than a match for them. Same goes for the force as a whole. As an aerial strike force - very impressive, on the ground against the massed forces of JS - mincemeat.

Strategically, would be a HUGE mistake. Strategic objective number 1 - Save Wanda. Going to ground would risk injuring her or croaking her, and then her force would be vulnerable to all JS weaponry, not just projectiles, and so their ability to absorb the limited stock of arrows etc is reduced.
Then suppose Wanda outlasts the attack and gets to the next turn. She's on the ground, surrounded and quite possibly without a dwagon to get away on.

This is a battle of attrition, attenuate JS's ability to take down GK's units before GK is completely depleted. Any form of attack that doesn't yield better than, say a 4:1 or 5:1 croakrate isn't going to be worth it.

I think you're forgetting something: A wierdomancer could drop those units out of the sky. And IF a wierdomancer dropped those units out of the sky AND a nice shiny airforce was around to help Jetstone they would have a 70% chance of victory. (Or more) So as far as I can tell a mass drop out of the sky will likely win the battle here and now. Of course its very possible that the dwagons won't be able to fall and that they will just kind of stop at the ground...

I think its a great plan, they can drop knights in the middle of the archers, Jetstone isn't even thinking about an attack, so there not going to waste space with heavies when they could have archers stacked up with the chief warlord and dittomancer. If tram goes down they take a nice hit to bonuses, if the dittomancer falls a massive hit to bonuses, and they can't double arrows, if Slately or the garrison goes down its GG. If GK gets better ground bonuses then Jetstone its also GG because Jetstone will have to send more than one unit to kill a unit, so the GK force will grow and grow. GK stands a good chance to win this by attacking NOW.

On a side note: Why do you think the golems are better? Dwagons were shown roasting battle bears with a single breath, and eating bunches of infantry with every bite; then those heavies are decrypted and can fight back as well. Sure the dwagons would have worse bonuses now, but not that badly* and before it was heavies being one shot. And if the dollamancer or dittomancer goes down...
*(chief warlord+doll)*2 vs. better warlord+croakamancy+artifact

The point about Jack is excellent. I'm not that miffed by Parson and Jack discussing an actually likely and useful scenario as opposed to the useless fancily perfumed cwap we saw Parson ask about in that one update. But, if that discussion took place, then maybe Jack took a blow to the head in the meantime.

Parson was just asking about random rules, Jack was explaining the rules. I think the senario was just a normal attack and Parson got side-tracked to things involving falling and city zones. The bombs is not something that they have, just something Parson was wondering about having Sizemore make.

[splintermute]

The pliers are designed to dominate any battle of attrition. Yes, the dittomancer can double and the dollamancer and healomancer can heal, but they have a finite amount of juice. From what we've seen of the pliers (instantly raising all of RCC 1), they don't have a juice limitation. Even a 1:1 attrition rate would be sufficient - every JS unit they manage to kill would come back significantly stronger as a decrypted (Ossomer's leadership bonus (assuming he survives) + Wanda's bonus to uncroaked + artifact bonus + (if they're super lucky) decrypted dittomancer bonus). The hard part would be getting over the initial hump where their damage output is negated by the healing abilities of the JS casters.

[Ansan Gotti]

It just so happens that Parson and Jack discussed what to do if trapped off-turn in the airspace ld of a level 4 city and had Sizemore make bombs for exactly this situation. Way too convenient.
OTOH - if they have them, why didn't Jack mention them in the war council update? " Well, it just so happens that Lord Hamster and I planned for exactly this contingency..."

To be fair, Parson mentions in the klog that he wanted to talk to SIZEMORE about dirt bombs, not Jack, so Jack might very well be out of the loop.

Also, I'm going to reproduce a post about creativity from the klog one comment thread, mostly because I like it.

--

I think it's more an issue of individual CREATIVITY rather than learning. Yes, we've seen that Erfers can grasp new concepts and even apply them pretty quickly. We've seen intelligent Erfers.

But for a world full of SOLDIERS who are used to following orders (do what you're told, don't innovate or think independently) and are fighting nigh-constantly (so who has time to imagine up new ideas), creativity and individualism are toward the bottom of the barrel. More than that, people who think outside of the box may translate to low loyalty and/or propensity to disobey orders, which leads to AUTOMATIC croaking as we've seen from Stanley. This creates an almost EVOLUTIONARY bias against creativity.

So when some outside agent introduces new ideas, wildly creative ideas, yes, Erfers might apply some of them if they come across them (and I also agree with enthar's post), but coming up with them individually? Rare and unlikely, perhaps extremely so.

This is one reason why Faq is an interesting concept to me, a hidden kingdom insulated from war gave rise to a philosopher-King. And some of the most interesting people are coming from that kingdom.

Hmm... one might almost think that, like free will, this is another deliberate theme of the author's that he has planned all along.

[gazes_also]

]I think you're forgetting something: A wierdomancer could drop those units out of the sky. And IF a wierdomancer dropped those units out of the sky AND a nice shiny airforce was around to help Jetstone they would have a 70% chance of victory. (Or more) So as far as I can tell a mass drop out of the sky will likely win the battle here and now. Of course its very possible that the dwagons won't be able to fall and that they will just kind of stop at the ground...

I think its a great plan, they can drop knights in the middle of the archers, Jetstone isn't even thinking about an attack, so there not going to waste space with heavies when they could have archers stacked up with the chief warlord and dittomancer. If tram goes down they take a nice hit to bonuses, if the dittomancer falls a massive hit to bonuses, and they can't double arrows, if Slately or the garrison goes down its GG. If GK gets better ground bonuses then Jetstone its also GG because Jetstone will have to send more than one unit to kill a unit, so the GK force will grow and grow. GK stands a good chance to win this by attacking NOW.

On a side note: Why do you think the golems are better? Dwagons were shown roasting battle bears with a single breath, and eating bunches of infantry with every bite; then those heavies are decrypted and can fight back as well.
.

Weirdomancer? Weirdomancer? Where is this weirdomancer? Is Wanda going to pull one out of some orifice? Also I think you misunderstand how the weirdomancer would work. It would be an attack, you take your opponents flying special and they then become an airbourne piece of meat about to go splat. You seem to think it would translate an airbourne unit to the ground safely and intact.
Do you also seriously think that JS would put any valuable units directly under flyers they are trying to shoot down?

And it is a personal opinion, but I reckon that dwagons without flight are clumsy and have poor maneuverability - their out of their element and therefore vulnerable

[Qwert]

First post, and all I know was gleaned off reading the Erfworld webcomic. Forgive me if I sound stupid.

So, when a unit in the air touches the ground, it's considered a Fall, regardless of distance? Interesting. What about jumps? How long must a unit stay airborne to be considered for a Fall? What if the ground touches you? e.g. a mount flies into a sloped cliff/hill, or a sandstorm brings up sand into the air onto mounts? How much earth must it be to be considered "Ground"? (Mudpools or swamps with varying density in mind)

I'm beginning to imagine Dirtamancers making blobs of rock connected to the ground by a small string of earth (Or earth infused strings/chains/vines/whatever you fancy), and units whirling them around to cause everyone in mid-air to suffer Falls.

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

IF the pliers can uncroak across boundaries. We still don't know about that either way. That would all depend on the ability of the pliers to cast across the zone boundary.

Does not matter.

supposed it was the ground

A corpse is still above the ground and therefore in the same space as the airspace. Decrypting a dead ground unit from the air is not crossing boundaries.

So, when a unit in the air touches the ground, it's considered a Fall, regardless of distance? Interesting. What about jumps? How long must a unit stay airborne to be considered for a Fall? What if the ground touches you? e.g. a mount flies into a sloped cliff/hill, or a sandstorm brings up sand into the air onto mounts? How much earth must it be to be considered "Ground"? (Mudpools or swamps with varying density in mind)

I believe that a jumping ground unit never leaves the ground space. A mount with dirt on it never left the airspace. Also flying mounts can land without falling.

It is a good question. It has not been spelled out in writing. If units have been drawn jumping (running counts because both feet leave the ground) then Rob will make up the rules to fit. You can ask Rob if you catch him at http://treeofworlds.net/irc/erfworld.html. I suspect we will not get that question detailed in the script.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

...the intentional force theory I put forward is supported here. If you shoot an arrow down towards the air zone boundary it will be stopped because it has intentional momentum, if you drop something it will pass through as it starts with zero intentional momentum and the only force acting on it is the non-intentional force of gravity.

I disagree. The Klog says an arrow will stick in the air if shot from outside of the city into the city, or from the airspace to the tower. Parson then asked specifically about shooting at the ground, and Jack thought it would work. I read this as implying that the tower and the airspace are considered to be on the same level - that you cannot fly directly above the tower. Which means that GK won't be able to take out Slately by dropping troops onto the tower. (Though I assume that Jetstone will need to put a lot of archers on the ground where GK can drop/crap onto them because of limited space in the tower.)

I wonder if Parson would now be unable to repeat the Banana experiment due to Duty now that he knows the risk of croaking.

[Lamech]

Weirdomancer? Weirdomancer? Where is this weirdomancer? Is Wanda going to pull one out of some orifice? Also I think you misunderstand how the weirdomancer would work. It would be an attack, you take your opponents flying special and they then become an airbourne piece of meat about to go splat. You seem to think it would translate an airbourne unit to the ground safely and intact.

Never was one, BUT when Parson was checking the odds of an attempt to wreck the garrison ANY caster being in the garrison would place there odds at no lower than 70%. Therefore if Jillian had brought a Wierdomancer instead of Vanna and she had dropped GK's units out of the sky Gk would have had a 70% chance of victory, at least. So, if the GK fliers can choose to fall and a wierdomancer could have blasted them out of the sky the chance of destroying the garrison is still at least 70%.

Do you also seriously think that JS would put any valuable units directly under flyers they are trying to shoot down?

I assume the dwagons are faster? They seem to have higher move and to be rather agile air units Then Jetstone doesn't get a choice. If they wait until the unit Gk wants to hit is out from under dwagons they wait 'till GK's next turn.

And it is a personal opinion, but I reckon that dwagons without flight are clumsy and have poor maneuverability - their out of their element and therefore vulnerable

The have legs, they sit in trees just fine, I doubt it. Maybe, but maybe we see a dwagon landing on the column attack. http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0056.html

[DevilDan]

Goal 1 is saving Wanda. That's reasonable. The question is whether leaving Wanda up where she is is the best way of keeping it safe.

In any case, Gazes_also, I'm glad you're giving this story a fair chance despite its clumsiness. It's big of you considering you already figured out everything about what's going to happen next.

Just think of this: the situation we're seeing is a very uncommon one. Yes, there would be situations where this sort of standoff could occur, but this particular confluence of events and forces is the result of high-level Turnamancy, something that managed to surprise even Erfworlders.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Also, I'm going to reproduce a post about creativity from the klog one comment thread, mostly because I like it.

But you're still wrong. To summarize my response, creativity is a rare thing on Earth too, but when enough people work at a problem, for enough time, in favourable conditions (which when creativity is concerned, include war), they will find pretty much almost all there is to find, and certainly all that a stranger to their world, who needs to be potty trained, will be able to find in a mere couple hundred turns.

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

I wonder if Parson would now be unable to repeat the Banana experiment due to Duty now that he knows the risk of croaking.

Was that a "fall" or a "rough landing"?

[gazes_also]

Just think of this: the situation we're seeing is a very uncommon one. Yes, there would be situations where this sort of standoff could occur, but this particular confluence of events and forces is the result of high-level Turnamancy, something that managed to surprise even Erfworlders.

That would be my point exactly.

I have not at any point predicted what's going to happen next, I'm just pointing out holes in some of the more far fetched theories which, to me, rank up with those about Ford being able to defeat Trammenis at Exposition Bridge.

@Lamech
So what is your scenario whereby GK could actually WIN from this position?
On the 70% chance of victory against any caster - that was on GK's turn, so they could storm the tower on foot, they can't do that now. They would have been going against only the limited garrison defensive units - no Tramennis column and Jillian would be stuck in the air space ( allies cannot move between city zones off-turn). Completely different situation.

EDIT
you also realize the the whole 70% chance of victory was not against ANY caster, but against 1 random caster of all possible types. If the odds of success with no caster on the other side is 95% and falls to 70% against an unknown caster then that means that some casters make no difference to the outcome, against some possible casters you are 50/50 or worse to lose and against some smaller fraction you will lose with absolute certainty.

[Ditto]

Was that a "fall" or a "rough landing"?

This is a good point. The dragon has the Flying special, so might have just been unable to use it while Parson was onboard but does not itself count as a non-flying unit. Sort of like the difference between a unit who has used up all its move for a turn, vs. a garrison unit like Parson. Different types of Zero move. And then Parson slid off of Banana after the dwagon had safely cross zones and resulted in skinning his knee.

A unit that jumps does not have the Flying ability, so it is unable to cross into airspace. It's kind of funny to think that Jetstone could make a human tower of infantry just to get up to Wanda's height and everyone blows her raspberries, but they can't touch them because no matter how tall they are, they're still on the ground.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

Just think of this: the situation we're seeing is a very uncommon one. Yes, there would be situations where this sort of standoff could occur, but this particular confluence of events and forces is the result of high-level Turnamancy, something that managed to surprise even Erfworlders.

It's probably not common, but should be within range of known possible situation. We know that the defending units in a city automatically get handcuffed if the garrison falls. But is that also true for allied units? imagine Gk took the capital with ground forces; then Jillian would be hovering without move in an enemy airspace. Or maybe Turnamancers can not only give move outside of turn, but also reduce move of an enemy unit. Or Weirdomancers can do that.

[BLANDCorporatio]

I'll throw my 2 cents behind the "Wanda shouldn't land" camp.

Wanda's force was meant as a quick-and-dirty head-strike. Get in, smash the (supposedly) relatively undefended tower, get out. I really don't think it's smart for such a force to engage, on the ground, a mass of infantry and archers.

It may be the case that being on the ground conveys a defensive bonus (in a game I'm playing on these forums, with LtDave as GM, that's how it works; wonderful game it is too, check it out). But whatever bonus that is, it will be more than compensated by Jetstone's offensive and, probably, the Dwagons' clumsiness.

And why land? If cwap bombs can reach the enemy, use those. We found out that this is, indeed, the case, so no need for my FPACG Armour or anything like it. Just stay aloft and cwap the mofos. (There's the tower thing too; maybe FPACG works there).

PS: in a thread on the sister area of this one, Agarwaen mentions a possible advantage of the fall tactic- control the city zone, effectively cutting the tower off from reinforcements coming from outside the city.

Somehow, this looks like a bad idea. With fall being so destructive (but not reliably lethal, which would work for Wanda), this would leave the fallen units at the mercy of whatever units Jetstone has in the tower, courtyard and who knows, dungeon. Presumably, Jetstone would get initiative bonus against an off-turn unit that needs to pick itself up and count how many broken bones it has.

[effataigus]

Aye... relying on landing alone seems like a bad idea. I think that this has been said:

If I remember correctly, the 70% was referring to Gobwin Knob's force vs. Jetstone's emptied garrison, Faq, and a random caster. Right now it is the same Gobwin Knob force against Jetstone's garrison, a random caster, Hagar's column, the tower defenses, the tower caster bonuses, and the Jetstone exposition bridge force (which was (arguably) alone enough to pose a dire threat to GK's force even with Ansom's column). These are not comparable situations, and it sounds to me like GK would get devoured in an even fight now.

I don't think even a perfect transition of all units from the sky to the ground would help them unless they manage to enact the plan before JS gets back and still find a way to attack the Garrison without crossing zones.

This post did make the idea of just trying to whether the storm seem more feasible. They can apparently still drop projectiles and possibly decrypt dead units as they fall or after they land amongst the archers.

This klog also seemed a little too conveniently timed, though it did answer a lot of my questions.

EDIT: Though I suppose if Wanda is able to decrypt Jetstone's dead forces then a little bit of death could go a long way.

[dirocyn]

Everybody saying the Pliers need to be able to work across boundaries is missing the point. Two points, actually. First, there is no hex boundary between airspace and ground. It is some other kind of boundary, and the divider is the ground itself. Second, Wanda is going to fall, along with every non-flying unit and every living unit that gets croaked--even if that means knifing all the dwagons (with possible exception of yellows, who are still useful from the air). The archons may not be able to drop, if not they'll have to be left in airspace. But I bet they can still provide a distraction. With clever use of illusion they may be enough to keep Ditto and the archers outside the capitol firing at the air--effectively taking him out of the fight.

Parson will take the risk that Wanda won't croak--and that if she's incapacitated somebody will still be available to use a healing scroll. That puts GK forces on the ground in the courtyard--or on the walls, or on the garrison. From there, they kill and decrypt units as fast as they can. That puts GK in a very favorable position, since Jetstone casualties become GK decrypted with higher bonuses.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Everybody saying the Pliers need to be able to work across boundaries is missing the point. Two points, actually. First, there is no hex boundary between airspace and ground. It is some other kind of boundary, and the divider is the ground itself. Second, Wanda is going to fall {snip}

Here's another missed point. If Wanda can decrypt from the air, why does everyone want her on the ground? It's like a saying in these here parts I inhabit, of scratching your ear with your foot. You prove that you are flexible. And lacking in common sense.

Who knows how much juice Jack has left anyways, AND there's the fact that Spacerock is not completely deserted. Meaning, it's a big gamble to land/fall.

[Lamech]

If I remember correctly, the 70% was referring to Gobwin Knob's force vs. Jetstone's emptied garrison, Faq, and a random caster. Right now it is the same Gobwin Knob force against Jetstone's garrison, a random caster, Hagar's column, the tower defenses, the tower caster bonuses, and the Jetstone exposition bridge force (which was (arguably) alone enough to pose a dire threat to GK's force even with Ansom's column). These are not comparable situations, and it sounds to me like GK would get devoured in an even fight now.

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/?px=%2F2009-12-24.jpg Not a random caster. No caster would put the odds below 70%; some caster types would even put it all the way to the 90's. The Jetstone forces just croaked ford. They are all way out of the city. They need to walk all the way there.

So what is your scenario whereby GK could actually WIN from this position?

On the 70% chance of victory against any caster - that was on GK's turn, so they could storm the tower on foot, they can't do that now. They would have been going against only the limited garrison defensive units - no Tramennis column and Jillian would be stuck in the air space ( allies cannot move between city zones off-turn). Completely different situation.

And if they attack RIGHT NOW they would be going against... the limited garrison defense. Tram is messing around with the remaining ground forces last time we checked and Jillian is long gone. GK doesn't need to bother with moving into the tower, they can simply fall right on to it. The main difference is GK not Jillian chooses were they fall, and Jillian can't take pot shots before GK falls. Both those push the chance of victory up. (Assuming of course the dwagons can choose to fall and the wierdomancer could have blasted them all.)

If Wanda can decrypt from the sky she probably should. Not if she's going to be the only flying unit up there of course, but its probably gonna be the safest place to be. No heavies or pikers or stabbers.