Book 2 – Text Updates 032

[ftl]

I do expect that GK's cities are competently defended, but not necessarily against an air assault. Air fights are a different story - infantry on the ground won't help too much there. You need dwagons and archons in the air, and shockamancy spells for defense. But a lot of the dwagons would be with Wanda's secret strike force, and the archons would probably be scouting, not garrisoned inside a city (especially since the turn got ended early).

While I think it's obvious that Gobwin Knob itself is well-enough defended that Jillian can't just waltz in and take it, I do think that Jillian's assessment of what she CAN do - sack some minor outlying cities straightforwardly, and then hightail it out of there back to FAQ without severe losses - is probably accurate unless Parson or Sizemore get involved.

[effataigus]

Sweet, thanks for dredging up all of this info! Indeed, I don't think that we really know enough about where various sides' troops are to be confident that GK is especially weak or strong anywhere. They definitely have a lot of troops to distribute between their remaining cities, but we don't know how much they valued Pogrock and the cities that Faq is heading towards. Of course, there are two things that leave me suspicious that Gobwin Knob isn't as safe as it might be thought to be. As Zil points out, both of these weaknesses are really just indicative of how much power Charlie might have.

1. As Teratorn reminded me, Charlie might have been responsible for the gobwins and the hobgobwins turning on Saline IV. If he was, and if he could do this again, then an unknown number of GK's forces could turn on GK at a moment's notice. Who knows what non-hobgobwin defenses are left in the capital?

2. Dividing the 7.5k un-accounted for units leaves ~500 units per city. Also, we know that many of GK's best units are 6 turns away by dragonflight... though we can assume that the capital is more heavily defended than the average city. In any event, this sounds an awful lot like Hagar's troop distribution. Charlie might have been bluffing then, but if he could credibly threaten Hagar with forces that somehow evaded Hagar's detection (or perhaps are just fast enough to move within range in a single turn), then is it possible that GK is in the same situation?

In both of these cases, the threatening forces are fliers or already inside the city, so the awesome lava moat and castle walls probably wouldn't amount to much of a defense. Also, it would be madness to not worry about homeland defense, but, until today, the CW was Ansom who doesn't seem to know enough about Charlie to anticipate this kind of threat.

I still don't think that a Charlescomm decapitation strike on GK is likely, but I'm not ready to rule out the possibility.

[Not Me]

Sweet, thanks for dredging up all of this info! Indeed, I don't think that we really know enough about where various sides' troops are to be confident that GK is especially weak or strong anywhere. They definitely have a lot of troops to distribute between their remaining cities, but we don't know how much they valued Pogrock and the cities that Faq is heading towards. Of course, there are two things that leave me suspicious that Gobwin Knob isn't as safe as it might be thought to be. As Zil points out, both of these weaknesses are really just indicative of how much power Charlie might have.

1. As Teratorn reminded me, Charlie might have been responsible for the gobwins and the hobgobwins turning on Saline IV. If he was, and if he could do this again, then an unknown number of GK's forces could turn on GK at a moment's notice. Who knows what non-hobgobwin defenses are left in the capital?

2. Dividing the 7.5k un-accounted for units leaves ~500 units per city. Also, we know that many of GK's best units are 6 turns away by dragonflight... though we can assume that the capital is more heavily defended than the average city. In any event, this sounds an awful lot like Hagar's troop distribution. Charlie might have been bluffing then, but if he could credibly threaten Hagar with forces that somehow evaded Hagar's detection (or perhaps are just fast enough to move within range in a single turn), then is it possible that GK is in the same situation?

In both of these cases, the threatening forces are fliers or already inside the city, so the awesome lava moat and castle walls probably wouldn't amount to much of a defense. Also, it would be madness to not worry about homeland defense, but, until today, the CW was Ansom who doesn't seem to know enough about Charlie to anticipate this kind of threat.

I still don't think that a Charlescomm decapitation strike on GK is likely, but I'm not ready to rule out the possibility.

As for 1. I would expect Stanley to keep a good amount of his dwagon forces (we know there are a few of them flying over GK from several updates: the Banana experiment, Jack doubling the amount of flying dwagons but with odd colours, etc.) and also the archons he used to scout the surroundings (both for security and taming feral dwagon's reasons).
From Summer update 23:

Gobwin Knob had popped two Twolls on its first two turns since being rebuilt, and would be popping them until Stanley decided they had enough henchmen around.

So they should have a few twolls as well.
From Summer update 45:

As tribes, natural allies could pop new units if they had extra Schmuckers. So Stanley had used the intervening turns and a notable chunk of the treasury to repopulate the Hobgobwin tribe from the lone remaining Knight to around two hundred units, about forty or fifty of them Knights. But there were no Gobwins in Gobwin Knob.

Considering Stanley has the Arkenhammer I guess those hobgobwins won't be enough to do another Saline IV.

As for 2. From what I posted earlier it seems Charlie tried to send Archons to GK battlespace but they couldn't get there so I guess we can assume Charlie has no intel on what troops are still left in GK and that might be another reason why Charlie doesn't like Parson.

Also, of those 7500 troops being not evenly distributed I would expect Stanley to keep most of them at GK (if he wasn't directly involved but just played into it he might not know the details, but he still knows Saline IV died when the defenses at the Capital were weak and I'm sure he doesn't want to risk that happening to him) and of those troops being kept at GK probably are most of the dwagons not with Wanda and also the archons used for scouting the area for feral dwagons and possible enemies. So I don't think the hobgobwins are enough to kill Stanley nor the air defenses are weak enough for Charlie to do something like in the end of Book 1.

[CorrTerek]

He could have just asked the bracer what the probability that the attempt would be worth his time and gotten a really low number.

I can accept that, and unless we're told otherwise I'm going to assume that's what happened.

[Oberon]

Not necessarily. IF Charlie is in the habit of eavesdropping on thinkagrams, then the probability should be 100%. If he CAN'T eavesdrop on thinkagrams, then the probability should be 0. So, if the bracer doesn't *know* which is true, it'll give an answer which is the same as the answer to the question "What's the probability that Charlie can eavesdrop on thinkagrams." If this probability, based on what the bracer knows, is the same as the probability that parson would assign if he had to guess, then asking the bracer doesn't give him any new information, regardless of how he phrases the question.

You seem to be operating on the assumption that the bracer can only give an accurate answer if "it" (or Parson) somehow knows all of the facts involved. This couldn't be more wrong. If this were the case, then Charlie would never have been able to spend a calculation to predict the future. The future is, by definition, completely unknown. There are no "future facts" that the bracer or Parson could "know" in order to give a meaningful reply to the calculation "Tell me the odds that learning what happened to my Archons right now will be worth giving up those calculations in the future." This demonstrates that the bracer is not bound by what Parson knows (although the recalculation after the reveal of Jillians forces at Spacerock is an inconsistency which requires explaining) of by what the bracer knows.

"LordHamster: Determining the decision not to spend all the calculations. Cost: one calculation.
CharlsNChrg:
LordHamster: Teaching me that my bracer can make sophisticated predictions about the future? Priceless.
CharlsNChrg: ...
CharlsNChrg: "

Wanda can only decrypt units if there were units. I don't think Jetstone made the mistake of leaving troops in these cities.

That does not apply to garrison units, which can not be moved without expensive upgrading. Which we've seen done once. And killing the garrison so that GK can't decrypt it? That we've seen done once also, and it was a big deal at the time. I think that the safe assumption is that Wanda has been happily decrypting all garrison units in captured cities to serve in their standard role. Which is again a lot more units than any newly conquered city would have in it, barring rather expensive garrisoning by units far better suited to advancing with the main thrust of the expeditionary force.

It's more likely that they pulled all the troops in GK's way back to the capital, disbanded units to expensive to upgrade and sacked the city to boast the treasure. In that case GK had to leave troops behind to defend the new cities.

Again,this sort of tactic was given a huge amount of spotlight with Bea, and none at all since. I don't think it is at all safe to assume that since Bea that a "scorched Erf" strategy has suddenly taken hold amongst the remaining Royal Sides. If that were so, then we should have seen mention of it.

[Oberon]

Of course maybe Wanda likes control to much to bother with offensive spells. Wouldn't surprise me.

We do know that she has a spell which causes headaches.

[Kender Wizard]

Hmm. Well, I think we would all agree that, even if Progrock has double the units a city of its type would normally have (by erf standards, not GK standards), then Jillian should be able to sack it handily. However, Wanda's group is still about as powerful as Jillian's. If Jillian decided to return to Spacerock after having 'proven' that she wasn't under a suggestion, then her forces might be decisively weakened attacking Progrock. Some of the megas were injured attacking Ansom's column, and the gwiffins that round out the air force don't seem that hard to croak (we've seen it takes a red dwagon only one bite, which I guess is equivalent to 3-4 hits by something else). It seems likely that Progrocks defenders can croak several of Jillian's units before the city is lost. Several posters have also said that infantry would be at a disadvantage against air units; unlike archons, they'll have to get within melee range of their targets to attack. So, maybe not as much of a disadvantage.

...or, Jillian could have her forces fly in, ignore everything but the garrison, and sack the city without taking more than a few crossbow bolts. Urg.

[Oberon]

Yes GK gets units from sacking low level towns instead of losing them, but they also bled off an unknown fraction of these units for other purposes.

The primary point here being garrison units. Those units would be dead and depopped after any standard city conquest. As garrison units they can't be "bled off" to serve as fodder for the advancing army. With Wanda present, she simply decrypts those units, and they stay in the new city doing the same job they had before. And each of those garrison units would not have been there, in any traditionally captured city.

Yes they might have rebuilt these cities to a higher level than they were at when they were conquered, but they might have also rebuilt some of them to lower levels.

First off, the possibility that cities might be rebuilt to lower levels than they were prior to their capture is irrelevant. Again, the primary point here is that with Sizemore and the new gem deposits as factors, the newly conquered city can be rebuilt stronger than it ordinarily would be under more conventional circumstances. This is not necessarily expressed as "stronger than it was prior to capture", rather it is "stronger than the typical city would be after capture." That is the comparison which makes sense in context. Maybe GK doesn't rebuild conquered cities. Or maybe GK doesn't rebuild conquered cities stronger than they were before they were captured. The point is, they can. They can both afford it and they have the necessary caster able to be dragon-chain-flown to the site for casting, and then dragon-chain-flown back to GK for safety. No other Side can boast this, being lacking on one or many of the prerequisites.

I'm finished arguing this. I find it to be a rather self-evident point, once Kender Wizard pointed it out for us. But if others disagree, then we can simply differ on the subject.

[barawn]

There may be better ways to state these questions (i.e. Can Charlie listen in on Thinkagrams from myself to Wanda using Maggie as the Thinkamancer? Or whatever), but Parson is no doubt smarter then I and would phrase his questions better.

Sure, but the bracer doesn't have to be a fair respondent, and in addition, the bracer calculates odds; it doesn't necessarily answer questions. If you ask "What are the odds that Charlie can listen into a thinkagram..." etc., the response doesn't have to be 1 or 0, because there are a ton of conditions which could cause Charlie, even if he is capable of doing it, to become incapable of it. He could be croaked. He could be asleep. He could lose the Arkendish. He could be doing something else at the time. Et cetera.

Now, asking things like "What are the odds that Charlie listened in to the thinkagram that I just sent?" is different, but we've never seen the bracer do something like that! All we've ever seen the bracer do is calculate *future* odds, and I think that distinction is important.

[Oberon]

There may be better ways to state these questions (i.e. Can Charlie listen in on Thinkagrams from myself to Wanda using Maggie as the Thinkamancer? Or whatever), but Parson is no doubt smarter then I and would phrase his questions better.

Sure, but the bracer doesn't have to be a fair respondent, and in addition, the bracer calculates odds; it doesn't necessarily answer questions. If you ask "What are the odds that Charlie can listen into a thinkagram..." etc., the response doesn't have to be 1 or 0, because there are a ton of conditions which could cause Charlie, even if he is capable of doing it, to become incapable of it. He could be croaked. He could be asleep. He could lose the Arkendish. He could be doing something else at the time. Et cetera.

All of which is covered by Parson both bring smarter than I am, and having an instant feedback loop. Parson, after seeing a ridiculous response, would quickly learn to add in conditionals for being croaked, asleep, or sans 'Dish. And that's assuming that the bracer is so pedantic as to require such conditionals, which there is no evidence to support.

[asweethero]

just something iv come to realize. assuming Parson DOSE make it to the battle which is every indication he will ( i wont argue the mechanics of this exploit here which will boop with everyones heads im sure) unless they want to end the storyline which i seriously doubt GK will win the battle. (i dont see a "them surviving to limp away" scenario) which finally brings me to the point. at the end of this battle we will know how useful decrypted casters will be. which might make wanda a very very scary lady

[zilfallon]

Now, asking things like "What are the odds that Charlie listened in to the thinkagram that I just sent?" is different, but we've never seen the bracer do something like that! All we've ever seen the bracer do is calculate *future* odds, and I think that distinction is important

.

You're wrong there, about "What are the odds that Charlie listened to my thinkagram" thing. After the gobwins disappeared, Parson asked the bracer the probability of Charlie being involved in their disappearance. Both of these questions seem similliar to me.

[effataigus]

Well defended enough to put up serious resistance to a force like Jillian's? Doubtful.

Alright, I admit I phrased the beginning of my post more like a rebuttal when it was trying to make a similar (but distinct) point to the above. My bad. The rebuttal rhetoric was not toward any specific post, but in opposition to the unspoken mood of the forum moment... that GK's outlying cities might just be buff enough to hurt Jillian. Anyway, hearing no objections to the point I was arguing...

So as Kender Wizard pointed out, the GK cities should be much better defended than the typical newly captured city.

This point raises two interesting questions:

1. How common are garrison units? There would have to be an incentive to pop them despite them having lower move... probably lower upkeep, but who knows? While it is fair to say that we've only seen promotion to field unit once, it is also fair to say that I can't think of any known living garrison unit that has not been promoted (sorry Bogroll ). Are there others?

2. How typical is this situation? How many times in Erf history has an invading army taken a town and then left that town without either razing it or bleeding off some of the army's strength to fortify it. Admittedly, we don't know whether the advance column left units behind just as much as we don't know whether they took any with them.

I'm actually asking these questions instead of just ruminating on them because Not Me recently taught me that there are many answers out there for those that pay attention instead of just talking out of their butt (like I do).

[cdrcjsn]

I think GK's outlying cities are lightly garrisoned. We saw the point of view of a former RC garrison unit (the guy obsessed with his spear) before he was decrypted. Then later we see him as one of the troops in the assault at Jetstone's capital.

If Wanda's standard operation was to decrypt units and leave them behind as garrison units then I don't think we would've seen him at the bridge. I think she was stripping the cities of troops as she went to present an overwhelming force at the final fight.

[zilfallon]

I think GK's outlying cities are lightly garrisoned. We saw the point of view of a former RC garrison unit (the guy obsessed with his spear) before he was decrypted. Then later we see him as one of the troops in the assault at Jetstone's capital.

If Wanda's standard operation was to decrypt units and leave them behind as garrison units then I don't think we would've seen him at the bridge. I think she was stripping the cities of troops as she went to present an overwhelming force at the final fight.

And that's the correct think to do in that situation. They were so close to destroying a strong royal side without even endangering their cities. But of course, they had NO CLUE that Jillian had an air force and a turn ender.

[effataigus]

I think GK's outlying cities are lightly garrisoned. We saw the point of view of a former RC garrison unit (the guy obsessed with his spear) before he was decrypted. Then later we see him as one of the troops in the assault at Jetstone's capital.

If Wanda's standard operation was to decrypt units and leave them behind as garrison units then I don't think we would've seen him at the bridge. I think she was stripping the cities of troops as she went to present an overwhelming force at the final fight.

That was Wrigley, but he wasn't a "garrison" unit per se (i.e. a specialized unit with a move of 0 who cannot leave a city (like Parson until recently)). We know this because he was marched to the town where he died (during the days before the battle of Warchalking (pre book 1)) from the Unaroyal capital... so he had a non-zero move even before he was decrypted.

[teratorn]

I think GK's outlying cities are lightly garrisoned. We saw the point of view of a former RC garrison unit (the guy obsessed with his spear) before he was decrypted. Then later we see him as one of the troops in the assault at Jetstone's capital.

Or he could be a move enabled unit stationed at a city rather close to Spacerock. It would make sense to empty those cities, since they could be replenished as soon as Spacerock fell and GK wasn't expecting other side meddling in and attacking minor targets of opportunity.

[cdrcjsn]

Speaking of garrison units...

We know that you can promote a garrison unit out of turn (Parson did it to himself).
That probably means you can demote a normal unit to a garrison unit out of turn as well.

Is there a limitation on where you can do it? For the most part, sides won't designate garrison units outside of cities they own (because what's the point of a 0 move unit out in the middle of nowhere?).

If there isn't, perhaps that's how Parson plans on grounding the fliers, by turning the riders into garrison units, forcing them and their mounts to land (like he did back in the summer updates when he tried to ride a dwagon). Perhaps it's one of the safest ways to "fall"?

[zilfallon]

Speaking of garrison units...

We know that you can promote a garrison unit out of turn (Parson did it to himself).
That probably means you can demote a normal unit to a garrison unit out of turn as well.

Is there a limitation on where you can do it? For the most part, sides won't designate garrison units outside of cities they own (because what's the point of a 0 move unit out in the middle of nowhere?).

If there isn't, perhaps that's how Parson plans on grounding the fliers, by turning the riders into garrison units, forcing them and their mounts to land (like he did back in the summer updates when he tried to ride a dwagon). Perhaps it's one of the safest ways to "fall"?

Seems unlikely in many ways to me.
I don't believe that if you can promote a garrison unit to field unit, the reverse is possible.
Even if it was, I don't believe that it is just a matter of not having the need of making units a "garrison" unit in the field. I believe it isn't possible to do it outside a city you own, at all. (And as i said in the previous line, i don't believe it is even possible to demote a unit to garrison)

Ignoring my opinions, and lets assume it is possible to make units in an enemy city garrison-units off turn. The reason Parson couldn't mount is because he's a heavy. Only deal with garrison units is that they have a move of 0. But the units' move are already 0 when it is not their turn, so i don't think it would cause a massive fall.

But you have a point. If the only hinderence being a garrison unit gave was 0 move and nothing else, then garrison units would have been able to mount, since riders use their mounts' move. So maybe there is a special rule here, which says "Garrison units can't mount."

But this is all assuming you can demote field units in ENEMY cities to garrison. And it seems unlikely to me, as i've written above.

[joosy]

Speaking of garrison units...

We know that you can promote a garrison unit out of turn (Parson did it to himself).
That probably means you can demote a normal unit to a garrison unit out of turn as well.

Is there a limitation on where you can do it? For the most part, sides won't designate garrison units outside of cities they own (because what's the point of a 0 move unit out in the middle of nowhere?).

If there isn't, perhaps that's how Parson plans on grounding the fliers, by turning the riders into garrison units, forcing them and their mounts to land (like he did back in the summer updates when he tried to ride a dwagon). Perhaps it's one of the safest ways to "fall"?

clever idea, but I believe regardless of turn, crossing the 'boundary' between 'air' and 'ground' in a city by falling is considered natural shockamancy and is subject to the penalties already described.