Book 2 – Page 36

[DevilDan]

Keep a warlord or two with the dwagons. Jump down with the rest: some will be lost, some will be slightly injured.

It's not a master strategy, gazes_also, so feel free to dial back the venom. But it is a potentially workable one.

As for getting on the tower: it's either doable or it isn't. If Parson thought that was the way to go, he'd figure out a way, whether it'd be riding a ball of acidic battle crap or croaking a dwagon flying towards the tower at top speed (or say one flying up at a parabolic trajectory.) Yes, that's all ridiculous speculation. But that's how Rob keeps us entertained, he's mining exploits he creates himself. Me, I'm just sayin'.

Oh, and Oberon: Excellently put.

[Ansan Gotti]

Falling - as in dropping vertically, not intentionally descending on an angle, which is what it would take to breach the tower, and which, being intentional, will stop at the boundary.

I am somewhat surprised you are still clinging to this line of argument. Perhaps the dwagons could, you know... stop flapping their wings, perhaps? Gravity does the rest.

Let's assume, sheerly for the sake of argument, however, that they couldn't do this for whatever bizarre reason. Make a daisy chain of dwagons flying as close as possible to the tower with their necks in the next dwagon's mouth, and then chomp. Presto, dwagon corpses falling to the tower, and "It's raining men," too.

The stack? One Stack?

Well, one super key stack, anyway (the one with Wanda in it). The rest is chaos and mayhem.

[GlueDuck]

Falling - as in dropping vertically, not intentionally descending on an angle, which is what it would take to breach the tower, and which, being intentional, will stop at the boundary.

I am somewhat surprised you are still clinging to this line of argument. Perhaps the dwagons could, you know... stop flapping their wings, perhaps? Gravity does the rest.

Let's assume, sheerly for the sake of argument, however, that they couldn't do this for whatever bizarre reason. Make a daisy chain of dwagons flying as close as possible to the tower with their necks in the next dwagon's mouth, and then chomp. Presto, dwagon corpses falling to the tower, and "It's raining men," too.

The stack? One Stack?

Well, one super key stack, anyway (the one with Wanda in it). The rest is chaos and mayhem.

The thing is that gravity would pull the dwagons straight downwards and unless they were already over the tower (which is impossible due to the zone barrier) they wouldn't fall down on the tower but rather on the ground.

[Whispri]

Whispri:
It's not that Wanda is more vulnerable than other units per se, it's that she's the first and obvious target, as Slately told Jill.
What Parson considers "crazy" is the hewing to ideas of the will of the Titans, of faith, of nobility... when it limits one's tactical options.
Wanda isn't likely to be thinking about decrypting in the middle of battle, particularly not in terms of using decryption as a clever exploit. Wanda isn't herself averse to combat, as she's proven, so she was probably more focused on that than on casting.

You do have a point when it comes to targetting, still, she should have been the primary target during the Ossomer kdnapping once the veil went down, yet she escaped unscathed.

The thing about the alleged craziness, is that Jetstone are just treating their turn based World as if it is, in fact, turn based. Yes, they do seem to be in for a nasty shock, but the plain fact of the matter is they simply do not think it possible for Wanda and co. to destroy them. Failing to sufficently guard against the "impossible" may well be a fatal mistake, but it's hardly a sign of insanity. With Wanda, well there's her fatalism to consider and who says she doesn't have a plan of her own? Veiled Knights jumping into Tramennis's stack could really put a crimp on his day, without being on par with the City taking move Parson seems to have up his sleeve. Actually just having the Knights all jump to the wall and start croaking the archers there (with Yellow Dwagon support) might be enough to prise the boot off her neck.

And yes, Wanda is a very martial character, she may well think more like a Warlord than a Caster, she may even have been a Warlord at some point, Changemancy does exist after all. But the fact the remains that she's no stranger to telling the croaked to rise up and fight, so either there's a major flaw in the plan (such as post-Decryption confusion and hurtling towards the ground like a rock being a bad combination), or Jack was making a prat of himself.

I'm wondering why Wanda is classed as extremely vulnerable, considering her minimum stats from here are pretty high. One less Ansom with her sure, but one extra Ossomer and one extra Sylvia, she's probably tougher now.

Those stats are just counting her Leadership bonus of 8, which is granted to all decrypted/uncroaked on her side. I don't think anything been shown to say how many hits she has, or anything that would indicate how much damage she personally can take. Also, they're operating off of Parson's CWL bonus, which is nowhere near what Ansom's was. Ossomer, Sylvia, and KC might be able to give their individual stacks a decent bonus, but I doubt Wanda will benefit from all of them.

If Commanders benefit from their own Leadership ability, well that just makes her more impressive, as she is neither Uncroaked nor Decrypted. On the hits front, who knows how many hits Ansom has? It's true that Parson is significantly lacking in the bonus department, but when you add his bonus to Ossomers there is unlikely to be a great difference. And Sylvia is part of the same stack, the Ansom/Wanda bonus tag team really does suggest that her Leadership bonus will be piled on top of that as well.

[Ansan Gotti]

The thing is that gravity would pull the dwagons straight downwards and unless they were already over the tower (which is impossible due to the zone barrier) they wouldn't fall down on the tower but rather on the ground.

Sorry, not sure where you're getting this? My understanding was that airspace is above everything, including the Tower?

[Pointyleaf]

Sorry, not sure where you're getting this? My understanding was that airspace is above everything, including the Tower?

We don't know. It's an assumption (and an important one).

Why does the tower even matter? Can we know for sure that parley will happen there? (just asking, although I'd guess it will be. Again, we don't know).

[WaterMonkey314]

Can things bounce while falling? That might be a way to bypass the tower zone barrier without croaking parabolic dwagons (which sounds overly technical to be feasible).

[DevilDan]

Parley is a safe bet. Even if Tramennis wanted to play it safe and attack right away (though he doesn't, he at least wants to use it as an opportunity to gather intel), Slately would insist upon it, paradoxically both to be true to propriety and to insult GK with an impossible offer.

[Pointyleaf]

Parley is a safe bet. Even if Tramennis wanted to play it safe and attack right away (though he doesn't, he at least wants to use it as an opportunity to gather intel), Slately would insist upon it, paradoxically both to be true to propriety and to insult GK with an impossible offer.

Not sure if you're answering me or someone else, but I wasn't questioning if parley would happen, but if it would happen at the tower.

[DevilDan]

Parley is a safe bet. Even if Tramennis wanted to play it safe and attack right away (though he doesn't, he at least wants to use it as an opportunity to gather intel), Slately would insist upon it, paradoxically both to be true to propriety and to insult GK with an impossible offer.

Not sure if you're answering me or someone else, but I wasn't questioning if parley would happen, but if it would happen at the tower.

Tramennis--if he goes himself--would hopefully be too smart to stray into the airspace zone: instead of flying up to them, I'd stay on the other side of the zone boundary, ostensibly safe from GK forces and even from GK spells. (Vanna could cast across zones on an allied turn--even if she couldn't cross zones. Could a GK caster do the same in a city hex?)

On another note, I wonder if we've already met any other former Faq casters. Faq was reestablished, but was does that mean to former Faq casters and their loyalty?

[gazes_also]

Not sure if you're answering me or someone else, but I wasn't questioning if parley would happen, but if it would happen at the tower.

Well, Trammenis noted entering the city that GK could have dropped stuff on him, so he is aware of the danger of them being above him. Also at a parley he's unlikely to want to be straining looking up at someone he's going to offer terms of surrender, and he wouldn't want to take a one of JS's few flying units and go into the airspace. This leads me to think that he will parley from the balcony of the tower to be on more level terms physically with the GK leaders, and (I remain unconvinced that they can overfly the tower) it is the most protected place to do it from.

[Pointyleaf]

Not sure if you're answering me or someone else, but I wasn't questioning if parley would happen, but if it would happen at the tower.

Well, Trammenis noted entering the city that GK could have dropped stuff on him, so he is aware of the danger of them being above him. Also at a parley he's unlikely to want to be straining looking up at someone he's going to offer terms of surrender, and he wouldn't want to take a one of JS's few flying units and go into the airspace. This leads me to think that he will parley from the balcony of the tower to be on more level terms physically with the GK leaders, and (I remain unconvinced that they can overfly the tower) it is the most protected place to do it from.

Right. So if the tower can not be flown over, Tramennis should parley from there. If the tower can be flown over, JS can parley from wherever they think best, but Slately should be hidden from potshots that could kill him and disband the entire side. As you noted, Tramennis/Slately should be smart enough to figure this out.

If the tower can't be flown over, I can only think of one exploit involving "raining men" and attacking during the parley - using the parley as a diversion and attacking somewhere else, such as the Atrium, walls, or courtyard. Stack bonuses may also be affected during the attack, depending on who is sent to parley with whom (i.e., Tramennis is in tower parleying with Scarlet, leaving Wanda and Ossomer to give their bonuses to the attacking GK stacks, but no Chief Warlord stack bonus for the defending JS stacks).

But probably Parson is more creative than us and/or has more information.

For the sake of story flow and tension, I also guess this will be an actual battle, not just a "Slately gets offed by an exploit and JS disbands".


PS - obviously, when I talk about GK "attacking", I refer to "falling with style", where GK dragons/units hit the ground and the working ones keep attacking.

PPS - Is there any chance that flying mounted units don't suffer fall shockomancy if they never touch the ground? (their mounts do, but passengers don't?) Quite a stretch, but it's a possible exploit.

Developing that, here are the possibilities I see:
Dragon with passenger "falls". The dragon touches ground, but passenger doesn't. There are two possibilities:
A) Both dragon and passenger suffer fall shockomancy.
B) Only dragon suffers.

(A) is what most of us have expected, and offers mediocre possibilities for attack. (B) has potential.

Given B, there are two more possibilities:
B1) Both passenger+dragon are considered to be in the ground hex (and thus, passenger can cast on other grounded units). This doesn't make sense to me, though - if the passenger is in the ground hex, how'd she escape the natural fall-shockomancy?
(edit, possible answer: Mount absorbs the extra shockomancy damage?)

B2) Only the dragon is in ground hex. The passenger is considered to be still flying, as she never technically touched the ground. Presumably she couldn't cast on grounded units.. except.. possibly, units she can touch while mounted. That'd be a second exploit: casting across zones on units that Wanda or the Pliers are physically touching.
That'd work.. quite a pair of exploits, but it seems possible. If Wanda can decrypt units from the back of a grounded unit without suffering fall damage, she may be able to snowball an army. Though, if she's technically "flying", she doesn't give the hex or stack bonuses for the decrypted units on the ground. =\

Like I said: a stretch. But we've only come up with mediocre ideas otherwise. What does Parson/Rob know that we don't?

[raphfrk]

Given B, there are two more possibilities:
B1) Both passenger+dragon are considered to be in the ground hex (and thus, passenger can cast on other grounded units). This doesn't make sense to me, though - if the passenger is in the ground hex, how'd she escape the natural fall-shockomancy?
(edit, possible answer: Mount absorbs the extra shockomancy damage?)

This could also tie back into Parson's dwagon experiment. Maybe if the fall is due to overloading and not choice, only the dwagon takes the hit.

It doesn't seem unreasonable for the mount to take most of the damage. If it was RL, then that is what would happen with a fall.

[DevilDan]

It doesn't seem unreasonable for the mount to take most of the damage. If it was RL, then that is what would happen with a fall.

Just because it's not reasonable to us doesn't mean it's not precisely how it works on Erf.

[DoctorJest]

It doesn't seem unreasonable for the mount to take most of the damage. If it was RL, then that is what would happen with a fall.

Just because it's not reasonable to us doesn't mean it's not precisely how it works on Erf.

In most turn based strategy games, a mounted unit is considered one unit for all game purposes. So, a mounted unit and his mount share a pool of "hits". When those hits are depleted both the mount and rider are eliminated.

That doesn't mean it works that way in Erfworld, but appealing to the logic of the kinds of games that Erfworld emulates makes more sense than appealing to real-life logic.