Book 2 – Text Updates 032

[Ambug666]

So who's the guy with the pinguin coat and the 'fro with a little hat on the gwiffon behind Duncan and Jillian?

My money is on it being Bowie, the former Carnymancer of Queen Bea.

[Vreejack]

Am I bad for being glad that Jillian is probably out of the picture for the rest of this book?

I'll bet she comes within range of one pissed-off Tool.

[ftl]

Or, he has done this and the information it has given him hasn't been useful.

I wonder how that would work. Wouldn't any information be useful?

If asking "what's the probability that Charlie can do X" gives something that is low but not zero, for a whole bunch of different X. Low probability means that it's probably not true, but nonzero means that you can't just discard it out of hand. That leaves Parson exactly where he was before - not knowing Charlie's powers and being worried about them in every shadow.

[Smoker]

I'm still waiting for that special ball of crap to fall on Jillian's oh-so-deserved head.

I think its going to be very soon, a Parson vs Jillian battle.

Do we know what Jetstone's original capitol site was? If Parson steps into the MK, changes the Capitol to Progrock, then steps back through the portal, will it take him within gwiffonspit of Spacerock? This assumes that only Capitols have portals, and that Progrock is a capitol site.

It'd be hella funny though.

Everyone is making this so complicated...

- Dwagons can fall (witness Parson's failed flight attempt).
- Crash a Dwagon into a tightly packed enemy formation... lots of dead enemy. (Dwagon even has a 2 in 3 chance of surviving the crash)
- Wanda decrypts the newly dead formation.
- Rinse Repeat until no enemy units remain.

THANK YOU! This may not be what actually happens, but this plan is so simple and obvious that the whole "popping rations to overload flyers" and/or "harvesting dwagons to make them fall" movement cant POSSIBLY be what Parson is thinking.

I still think the code to break is "food fight". We have to think in pop culture cliché.

In food fights, someone always ducks and hits a random passerby, who retaliates by striking the wrong culprit, and the instigator often gets out by crawling under tables.

Can Parson do something to artillery to change the intended target? Or force Spacerock's natural allies to break with their faction?

I think this is overthinking it a bit.

We've learned that food can be popped at the beginning of the turn or harvested from certain units like sourmanders (we haven't been told if there is a timing restriction to this).

We've learned that objects can fall to the ground out of turn.

I think what we're going to see is that some dragons are going to be harvested for food, fall to the ground, and then decrypted.

I'm not convinced that's overthinking it.

Urf's interpretation also lends itself to a simple tactic - fall to the ground in the midst of a huge clump of units, foolamancy-disguise your own infantry and warlords (the guys who were mounted on those 30 dwagons) as Jetstone infantry and vice versa, make a massive chaotic free-for-all where nobody knows whose infantry are whose, Wanda walks around the carnage decrypting things (and Jack continues to make those things look like the enemy). Net result - everybody ally and enemy alike... leaving Wanda on the ground, with enough of a contingent of decrypted to take the garrison by ground, even after probably losing all of the dwagons (twice).

This is actually my preferred theory.

EDIT- And err, actually posting what I was going to say, before I got carried away with quotes...

I really like Jillian. I think people turn against her because she seems a bad tactician and gets away with too much. I tend to think she's an awesome tactician, but she's not fighting for what most people think she should be. I mean, look. There's a chance that Wanda might take over the world - big whoop. Jillian knows (or at least believes) that Wanda will never ever harm her, so why get involved? What she really wants is her little harem of lovers, and to kill Stanley. She's let other people 'manipulate' her up to a point so that she can work toward these things, but as soon as she has Ansom, and accepts that she wont have Wanda this turn, she goes back on her deals and heads home.

She did feel a bit guilty about it, and Charlie almost shamed her into turning back, but ultimately she doesn't care enough about other people's wars.

Also, if we compare Jillian today with Jillian of the start of book 1, we see a pretty big shift in character. At first she was just a sword-swinging cliche barbarian. Didn't care about anything but earning enough shmuckers to pay her upkeep, but she's come up a bit since then, and I suppose as time goes on she will continue to rise. Maybe one day she will live up to her nobility, but until then.. heh. She's fun.

She might not make for the world's most charismatic character, but she definitely is unpredictable and interesting.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

If asking "what's the probability that Charlie can do X" gives something that is low but not zero, for a whole bunch of different X. Low probability means that it's probably not true, but nonzero means that you can't just discard it out of hand. That leaves Parson exactly where he was before - not knowing Charlie's powers and being worried about them in every shadow.

One might even say that any caster can technically do anything that any other caster can do - via being linked to the other caster, buying a scroll, etc. One could even say that any commander can do anything that any trimancer combo (or trimancer with Arkentools) can do, by spending enough to hire the casters.

[zbeeblebrox]

Everyone is making this so complicated...

- Dwagons can fall (witness Parson's failed flight attempt).
- Crash a Dwagon into a tightly packed enemy formation... lots of dead enemy. (Dwagon even has a 2 in 3 chance of surviving the crash)
- Wanda decrypts the newly dead formation.
- Rinse Repeat until no enemy units remain.

As others have said before me (I'm sure): Exactly. All the dwagons will fall. 2/3s survive and 1/3 die from impact. Those are good - though messy - odds, and now the decrypted on their backs suddenly count as dismounted, so they can act as ground units. Moreover, of the 1/3 dwagons who die, only 1/3 of their riders will die (for good), which is a super tiny loss considering you just caused a major meteor storm. Since they'd count as projectiles, their chance to kill the enemy is much greater than their own chance of destruction (unless I'm reading that wrong). Meanwhile, every dwagon who "died" on impact can be theoretically decrypted, since all of Gobwin's dwagons are fully alive. The only unit who needs to stay in the air is Wanda, because you don't have to be on the ground to decrypt, and she's too valuable to risk that sort of maneuver on.

That said, Wanda is going to drop down anyway because she's insane. And she's going to survive, which she'll be completely unsurprised about even though it will royally piss off Parson. Who will be there to see it. The only thing I'm missing is Tremmenis' counter plan. The man seems too clever to get caught completely unprepared, especially now that he knows who he's dealing with as an opponent.

I should note that the severe lack of direct information about Parson's plan is a strong suggestion that it will succeed brilliantly, even if it starts to look bad at some point during combat. I was suspicious at first that they might actually lose, but as the story continues to play coy those suspicions have been weakening.

[I<3ChocolateMilk]

Capital. With an "A".

[Dr Pepper]

Well, if we're using the "bystanders get blamed and wrapped up into the fight" definition of food fight, then another possible "side" could be any MK would-be peacekeepers that attempt to chase Parson through the JS portal. It doesn't seem likely to me that they would follow him through the portal, but, if they did, I could very easily see an on-edge Ace coming across them and gunning a couple down in surprise (especially if the battle down below got confusing enough).

Not Ace. According to tradition the most deadly serious person in the room will get a pie in the face.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

Just a quick thought: If Jillian takes Progrock, won't that alert Stanley? I doubt he will like that. Also he later will lose another city. And apparently Parson will leave city in a few moments, something that shouldn't be possible. I wonder what he will do.

[sleepymancer]

Just a quick thought: If Jillian takes Progrock, won't that alert Stanley? I doubt he will like that. Also he later will lose another city. And apparently Parson will leave city in a few moments, something that shouldn't be possible. I wonder what he will do.

I assume that Stanley's response will be bluster, rage, threats of disbanding and maybe selecting another chief warlord... the reason being that, even if there are only a minimal number of troops still at Progrock, Parson might have been able to cobble together together a plan to take out Jillian. Had he been around; not just swinging a sword.

Not that Stanley can competently judge Parson's capabilities, just that he can ask for the world in a basket and Parson can pretty much provide. As long as you don't mind the world being dead that is

[Urf]

Has there been any theorycrafting about the nature of past Faq residents? They all have different eyes, with sclera, and are hot for each other. I wonder if Banhammer spread out Natural Thinkomancy to all his subjects and heir.

[Kizmet]

Predictimancy below...

1- "Dwagons/riders crash into enemy formations and wanda decrypts" plan starts well.
2- Then Tremannis manages to turn the fight against GK
3- Parson, Maggie, Sizemore, and all the remaining Archons do an assault through the portal to kill the King.
4- Just before Ace Hardware kills Wanda... he and the remaining garrison will freeze in place because the King has died.

oh and ...
5- Jillian will manage to convert Ansom... Wanda goes postal. End Book 2.


Side note:
1- Are we sure that the Hammer is attuned to Stanley? It is starting to appear more and more underpowered compared to the Dish and Pliers.
2- If GK is so well off financially... why haven't they (or Parson now) started hiring a ton of casters ffs? For example, GK's leadership knows how useful a Lookamancer like Misty can be and yet they haven't hired another one? Just hire the casters needed to repeat the "end of turn" spell and there would be no reason to have a food fight at all.

[Urf]

Just hire the casters needed to repeat the "end of turn" spell and there would be no reason to have a food fight at all.

Parson doesn't know how that happened yet. And Kingworld required Charlie, the Arkendish, and a Turnamancer in a Tower with caster buffs.

Plus I think Parson isn't going to employ Mancer links. It was risky and Janis had to hire the unravelling. Parson LIKES Maggie and SIzemore and the rest... he's not going to ask them to link up again unless he can manage a way out of it.

Can Royals change sides? We've seen Decryption change allegiance, and Jillian was made Barbarian when Faq was razed, but could Tramennis switch to GK if he were so inclined, and what would that do to the Spacerock ground forces? How dependent are they on his leadership buffs and would his defection have an effect on overall Jetstone resources?

I've figured out how GK wins, I've moved on to how Trammenis might win too.

[effataigus]

Capital. With an "A".

Yay for chain-corrections! I think he really does mean capitol with an "o"... since I believe the person you are correcting was referring to the location of the head of government rather than to "money" or any more abstract definitions of capital a la Communist Manifesto.

So who's the guy with the pinguin coat and the 'fro with a little hat on the gwiffon behind Duncan and Jillian?

My money is on it being Bowie, the former Carnymancer of Queen Bea.

There was a fair bit of discussion on this awhile back. If you scan the old images of Faq's forces back when they were by Spacerock's tower, you'll see that there are several people dressed just like this on gwiffons. This suggests to me that these folks are either generic soldiers or one of the many generic warlords that Faq has popped. Which is almost too bad, since it would be fun to see what a carnymancer could do!

So.. I take it I'm the only one whose still a loyal Charlie fan?

Nope, not the only one! There are still a lot of observations regarding Charlie that have yet to be accounted for that raise the spectre of huge lapses in logic (moments of "if he could xxx, why didn't he yyy way back when zzz???!!!"), but, unlike some readers, I can't think of any combination of observations that necessarily implies that Charlie is selectively an idiot... in fact, I think he's much more constrained than the most Charlie-critical forumites suggest. For now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and just appreciating him for being the interesting and dynamic enigma that he is.

Also... he made Jillian feel bad, and some very petty part of me will always love him for this.

Has there been any theorycrafting about the nature of past Faq residents? They all have different eyes, with sclera, and are hot for each other. I wonder if Banhammer spread out Natural Thinkomancy to all his subjects and heir.

Yes! There are entire threads on these topics in the Everything Else forums. Faq definitely seems different from the rest of the world. Wanda, Jillian, Jack, Banhammer, the Predictamancer... all of the characters we know from there seem to have motivations that don't quite fit with the standard "fight and die for the side" set that most units pop with. These characters all seem to have grander plans for their lives in service of fate, love, peace, or new ideas. I include the predictamancer assuming that she is indeed behind the MK's machinations.

[zilfallon]

In the page 3 of this thread, people mentioned Parson calculating some odds about Charlie's abilities. Remember that the bracer gives the user results according to what THE USER knows, not the %100 truth.
Remember Parson's words when it was GK's turn and Wanda was asking about odds. Parson said that Wanda's chances of taking the city by air dropped a lot after they learned about the air force of Faq. Jillian was there at first calculation too, but they just didn't know about it, so Jillian wasn't included in the calculation.

[5HT]

Capital. With an "A".

Yay for chain-corrections! I think he really does mean capitol with an "o"... since I believe the person you are correcting was referring to the location of the head of government rather than to "money" or any more abstract definitions of capital a la Communist Manifesto.

So who's the guy with the pinguin coat and the 'fro with a little hat on the gwiffon behind Duncan and Jillian?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_%28disambiguation%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_city

CapitAl is correct as he is refering to the city not the building.

[DevilDan]

I'm still of the opinion that a literal "food" fight is not what Parson intends.

[effataigus]

Ah, good to know!

[Urf]

I'm still of the opinion that a literal "food" fight is not what Parson intends.

What is your opinion? I don't think food will be thrown, but I do think that either: the fight will turn into chaos, or that the ammunition will turn harmless.

[CorrTerek]

If asking "what's the probability that Charlie can do X" gives something that is low but not zero, for a whole bunch of different X. Low probability means that it's probably not true, but nonzero means that you can't just discard it out of hand. That leaves Parson exactly where he was before - not knowing Charlie's powers and being worried about them in every shadow.

Well, in that case, you have a new range of questions you can input when you need to. Let's say you discard anything that returns a zero probability. Then you take anything that remains and ask the bracer how it would affect your battle plan's success percentage if Charlie had X power, as well as asking how likely it is that Charlie would use power X in said battle. If it returns a low percentage for one or both of those questions, you can likely rule out said power for that battle, at least.

In the page 3 of this thread, people mentioned Parson calculating some odds about Charlie's abilities. Remember that the bracer gives the user results according to what THE USER knows, not the %100 truth.

Not quite true. The bracer can make predictions about the future, something that the user definitely doesn't know -- else why would they ask? The bracer does, however, only answer the questions you give it. If Parson asked "If I have X forces and Jetstone has Y forces, how likely are we to win?" the bracer's answer would only take into account Jetstone's forces when giving the answer. You have to know how to ask the question, and asking specific questions about a person's abilities is a lot easier than asking "Will we win?" when matching yourself up to an enemy.