Book 2 – Text Updates 036

[ScegfOd]

The problem with this is that the Atrium, which is Spacerock's equivalent of a Courtyard, is a different city zone than the Tower.

There's no evidence that the Courtyard, Tower and Dungeon of a Garrison are separate city zones.

They are classified as Sub-Zones. So there is a direct distinction between them, and rules about attacking any Garrison Sub-Zone from any other City Zone (only airspace may hit tower, for example). We know that enemy units can move from one Sub-Zone to the next when attacking; what we don't know is if enemy units can cross Sub-Zones off-turn. There's no firm evidence of this one way or the other, but I personally suspect that it wouldn't be allowed... the distinction wouldn't need to exist otherwise.

i respectfully disagree!
what that comic says is that

the zone has three parts

. In other words, the contact points it has with the other three zones of the cities all have their own names (and properties). I believe what he is trying to explain is that defending the garrison is kind of like defending a room with 3 doors, from outside that room you can only enter through one door if you can hold the enemy at/in an entry way, then they cant take the garrison.
I don't believe that the 3 parts of the garrison are necessarily fully separate subzones.
...

actually now that i think about it, Parson may have been wondering whether or not these subdivisions of the garrison can be crossed when he said that he wasn't even sure his plan would work...

[edit] darn i was slow to post [/edit]

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

Boop KWW3,

Golf balls are also not round. The equation is just an estimate.

Internal friction would not effect the equation. If energy is dissipated the angular velocity would change. Also there would not be much internal friction if all of the poo is rotating at the same RPM.

Let's just forget about crap for a while. This is actually an interesting physics problem! To the empiric mobile!

... sometime later. For now, a few claims-

- you will never get a whole mass of something* spinning uniformly by applying an outside mechanical twist. Unless you use magic, and we'll ignore that uhm possibility.

EDIT: * strictly speaking, this is valid for every real material, because there exists no rigid solid. However, I meant to say you can't etc etc if the something in question is fluid-ish. That's when the impossibility is really noticeable.

EDIT, EDIT: well ok. If you take a fluidish thing, and spin it long enough, all of it will get rotating, eventually. You'll need to spin it for quite some time though, longer than if it were solid.

- internal friction will affect the physics of curve balls. Curving happens because of the spinning that the projectile does. If the projectile doesn't spin much, the effect you describe is much less strong.

- in fact, liquid-filled things are tougher to spin than rigid solids. I mean, example: if you have an egg, and try to spin it, if the egg is hard-boiled it will spin for much longer than if it were raw.

So now, the challenge: we know that it's possible to throw a curveball with, say, a base ball. The ball is actually filled with air, which is not rigid material, but most of the mass is solid. Can one still throw curve balls if the base ball were filled with water? We'll assume the ball to be made waterproof.

Ten schmuckers says no.

Now, back to crap. It would be somewhere in between the two extremes (solid ball, liquid ball).

The transition across a hex boundary might add a lot of spin. We have the case of a crossbow bolt stopping and then falling. We also saw parson squishing against the boundary. If a particle hit a horizontal boundary at a 45 degree angle 10 meter per second it might stop and then continue falling. Suppose a ball hits the boundary at 10 mps. That is 7.07 mps forward and 7.07 down. The bottom of the ball would stop at the boundary and begin to fall but the top of the ball would still be moving forward at 7.07 mps. Some of the forward momentum would transition to angular momentum.

The example of curving a water filled baseball does not work. The pitcher spins the baseball only at contact points on the outer surface. All of the mass of the object passes the boundary. Draining a bathtub will demonstrate that fluids will pick up spin.

Also a water filled ball thrown on earth's northern parts will curve counter clockwise because of the magnetic field. So I will take those 10 schmuckers.

[BLANDCorporatio]

The example of curving a water filled baseball does not work. The pitcher spins the baseball only at contact points on the outer surface. All of the mass of the object passes the boundary. Draining a bathtub will demonstrate that fluids will pick up spin.

Also a water filled ball thrown on earth's northern parts will curve counter clockwise because of the magnetic field. So I will take those 10 schmuckers.

I think not

The base ball example is actually very relevant- all you have is "hex border crossing might add spin"; said crossing having happened ages ago. And I was, after all, providing an argument based on Earth physics as a clarification to your own, Earth-physics based argument (the golf ball). And if you imagine a large animal operating under Earth physics, the ways in which that animal can impart spin to its own crap will be somewhat similar to the base ball example. No offense intended to base ballers.

If we just postulate that on Erf, cwap just spins, there's no problem. But if we liken cwap to Earth golf balls, that's when I'd ask, why not a more obvious comparison with Earth fluids/Earth objects filled with Earth fluids.

Finally,

a water filled ball thrown on earth's northern parts will curve counter clockwise because of the magnetic field

Citation needed, badly.

EDIT: PS, continuing the water being magnetic topic- this discussion is about whether a viscous ball can be made to curve its trajectory by imparting some spin on it, and the spinning object interacting with the air it passes through. Whether or not the magnetic field of the Earth (which is weak) would have an influence on (the rather weakly magnetic) water is irrelevant.

And any thrown ball will curve because of gravity

[Mourdos]

I realise that I'm making a post when I'm actually reading somewhere around page 14 still, but I have a question. Probably a very simple one.
Yellow Dragon crap 'falling' doesn't count as an attack. Jetstone deciding to open fire on the dragons during parley however would be, and would break parley. Considering that it has a half million penalty, which we suspect Jetstone can't even afford...

My question is as follows: What has to be done in order to end parley? Return everyone to their original places; or just decalre an end of it?

Addition question that just occured. What happens if you bankrupt yourself (since the parley penalty is indicated to be self-imposing)?

[Sieggy]

I suspect the simplest way to end Parley would be to yell "Open Fire!".

[Foolamancer]

If GK doesn't want peace, then why did they parley in earnest with Unaroyal?

It seems to me that Stanley doesn't know exactly what he wants, so he has allowed Wanda to define it, but she is also unclear what she should do to reach her goal of uniting the Arkentools. Further, it seems that Wanda has not been straight with Stanley about that goal because it would lead to uncomfortable conversations about Charlie.

Can you point to a text update or comic page where Stanley describes GK's strategic goals, either in general or why they are attacking Jetstone? Or Wanda, for that matter?

Well, it isn't Stanley or Wanda, but Princess Cruz definitely seems to have been speaking on their behalf here:

The attunement of two Arkentools to the same side may mean many things. But Gobwin Knob has taken it to mean that the Titans of Ark have revoked the mandate bestowed upon Royal lines to rule. Ansom affirmed this point, when I queried. The Decrypted act as if they have a new Titanic mandate.

The Croakamancer herself never spoke. She observed all, and simply met my gaze silently when addressed. The Decrypted Ansom gushed about his "Mistress Wanda" as the instrument of the Titan's will. The Decrypted Cruz said much the same.

They are pursuing the express aim of bringing all sides into a new alliance, in line with this new view of the world. They ask for the allegiance of all. Failing that, they intend to croak and decrypt every unit in Erfworld. Whatever this mockery of my daughter was, she then asked me to surrender Unaroyal and ally with Stanley.

Gobwin Knob does want peace. They just want peace with everyone united under one alliance. Anyone that won't join that alliance has to go.

Hmmm. All true, Foolamancer, good point(s).

There's only one thing about this plan that still niggles at me - and obviously it can't be proven one way or the other just yet.

This is how, exactly, they plan to get Wanda and Jack out of the airspace, when Parson clearly intends for them to survive what's happening. We know that falling from this height carries a pretty decent height of croaking outright...

True, but we already know that they are carrying several Healomancy scrolls. Several people have already speculated that Healomancy goes beyond simply healing wounds that have already been taken, since units heal at start of turn anyway. If that were Healomancy's only capability, it would be rather useless. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that Healomancy has the ability to prevent wounds entirely, including wounds from a fall. They could very well be able to use the Healomancy scrolls to survive the falling damage when they get into the Atrium.

and even if the fall only incapacitates or injures them, they're now going to be landing in a puddle of acidic dwagon crap.

I don't think the entire Atrium is covered in battlecrap.

At the same time, Tramennis is clearly not an idiot - if he sees Wanda decrypting the masses below he's going to order his archers to open fire on her, and even with Jack casting baffles and Healomancy to protect her, the odds of her surviving are not good.

Actually, I think they're pretty good. As we see in this KLog, the Garrison consists of Tower, Courtyard and Dungeon. Spacerock has no Dungeon, so that leaves the Courtyard (Atrium; the Atrium is part of the Garrison, Trammenis has told us that much) and Tower. The archers in the Tower would have to head to the Tower base to be able to attack the infantry in the Atrium (I don't think you attack through the airspace to the Courtyard, and even if you can, the Atrium roof hasn't been entirely destroyed, so Wanda and the others will have cover), which means that they'd only be able to attack a few at a time. And attacking infantry with archers at point-blank range is generally a bad idea.

And if the archers can attack across the airspace to the Atrium, they still have to get through the screening stacks that Jack and Wanda have left there. And they have to get through Jack's Foolamancy. I think they have a pretty good chance of surviving. At least, Wanda and Jack do - Parson has already said "we're going to lose most of you anyway".

Also, the KLogs that I linked to above tell us something new, and very important: you can attack from the Atrium to the Tower, even if it's not your turn. They're both part of the Garrison, and any part of the Garrison can attack any other. Infantry in the Atrium are considered to be in the same Zone as the archers in the Tower. That means that they can take the Tower this turn. And taking the Tower would mean that they have the entire Garrison, which means that they have Spacerock. As soon as the Garrison falls, the rest of the city falls as well.

So Wanda and Jack probably can fall into the Atrium without getting incapacitated. Once there, Wanda can Decrypt off-turn, and once Gobwin Knob has units in one sub-zone of the Garrison, they can attack the other sub-zones. They'll have to sacrifice most of the dwagons, but they take the city, and gain all the Decrypted infantry.

[zilfallon]

the joke probably depended on Bogroll having a D&D-ish regeneration ability that would restore him to health from the state of incapacitation.

in DnD, trolls can't regenerate fire or ACID. If twolls in erf "were" DnD-like, they shouldn't be able to regenerate acid damage.

But yeah, it doesn't have to be exactly like DnD. So we don't know which one is true.

by "which one", i mean one of these:

1) Regular yellow dwagon crap is acidic, but not even strong enough to pierce an umbrella. So Parson told Sizemore to implant crap bombs to all yellow dwagons before taking off.

2)Regular crap is enough to wreak havoc.

both are possible, but personally, i like #1 more because it was foreshadowed twice and Hamster's idea

[Ansan Gotti]

Spacerock has no Dungeon, so that leaves the Courtyard (Atrium; the Atrium is part of the Garrison, Trammenis has told us that much) and Tower. The archers in the Tower would have to head to the Tower base to be able to attack the infantry in the Atrium (I don't think you attack through the airspace to the Courtyard, and even if you can, the Atrium roof hasn't been entirely destroyed, so Wanda and the others will have cover), which means that they'd only be able to attack a few at a time. And attacking infantry with archers at point-blank range is generally a bad idea.

Spacerock actually does have a dungeon, it is tunnels that Spacerock lacks.

A fundamental question is whether invading units inside of a garrison can attack other parts of the garrison while off-turn. Pretty sure we don't have a definitive answer for that yet in the text, although IMO there is an implication that they cannot.

[effataigus]

a water filled ball thrown on earth's northern parts will curve counter clockwise because of the magnetic field

Citation needed, badly.

Indeed, it is my understanding that the water would have to have a net charge on it before curvature would be significant. Water, being a dipole, is subject to a weak reordering effect in the Earth's magnetic field, but that should only rotate individual atoms while leaving the mass' trajectory unchanged... even then, the reordering effect is small relative to thermal energy, so no lasting structure would be achieved... of course, who knows how strong Erfworld's magnetic field is.

Perhaps the blues dwagon blasted poos to charge them on the way down?

But, as long as we're talking Earth and since perspective has already been pointed out as a possible cause, we can call upon Coriolis to produce inertial circles. Erf would have to be spinning pretty dang fast to account for this amount of motion though, or possibly Erf would just have to be very very small and dense.

My head hurts.

[joosy]

You are all assuming the Yellow Dwagon hit Bogroll. He could have missed.

Also, it is possible that the acidic level can be adjusted. Its also quite possible it was just done for implied comedic effect.

Also.. to those posting with increasingly feverish ferocity in defense of their own pet theories.. I would like to paraphrase part of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme song:

"..If you wondering how Bogroll survived, or other crappy stuff. Just repeat to yourself "It's just a webcomic,
I should really just relax" "

[Selexor]

Hmm. I guess all the discussion hinges mostly on two big points.

One: Is there a decent chance of surviving a fall from the Airspace into the Atrium?
Two: Is it possible to move from one Garrison Zone to another when it's not your turn?

I think the answer to the first one is, in all fairness, "No". There's a chance, but not a decent one given the circumstances. Even with a Healomancy scroll at the ready, it's a big risk... but then, perhaps it's not just Healomancy? Maybe Wanda or one of the Warlords is holding a Luckamancy scroll to increase the odds of them surviving the fall.
The second one I'd give fair-even odds to. The Tower and the Atrium do both count as part of the Garrison, as observed, but they're seperate areas of the Garrison. We don't know if there's a barrier that cannot be moved through off-turn... hell, it might be as simple as Tramennis remembering to lock the door behind him, and Gobwin Knob units can't break it down until their turn because it counts as a seige action.

Other questions pop up - where are Jetstone's heavies, can the tower archers shoot down into the open roof of the Atrium, how many units will survive the crap bombardment, how many melee units are inside the tower to defend it, etc... But I will agree that if the answer to those two big questions above is "Yes" then this plan, assuming it is what Parson's doing, has a good chance of working.

[Althernai]

I do not understand why people think it is impossible to move between garrison zones off-turn. Is there a reference for this? As far as I can tell, the garrison is one zone for the purposes of movement. In fact, it is explicitly stated that "Once units are in any part of the garrison, then they can attack any other part of the garrison."

[Ansan Gotti]

I do not understand why people think it is impossible to move between garrison zones off-turn. Is there a reference for this? As far as I can tell, the garrison is one zone for the purposes of movement. In fact, it is explicitly stated that "Once units are in any part of the garrison, then they can attack any other part of the garrison."

Yes, but the entire context of that first paragraph is enemy units assaulting. Which means they would be on-turn, not off-turn.

[JustDoug]

Hmm. I guess all the discussion hinges mostly on two big points.
One: Is there a decent chance of surviving a fall from the Airspace into the Atrium?
...
I think the answer to the first one is, in all fairness, "No". There's a chance, but not a decent one given the circumstances.

According to the Rule Of Falling revealed earlier, "decent" doesn't enter into it. You fall and: croak; are incapacitated; walk away from the landing. Distance fallen doesn't enter into it. One foot is the same as one mile.

If each result (randomly determined, I'm guessing) has an equal chance of occurring and they do drop en masse, that means one third of the force will croak, one third will be wounded and out of the fight un{til|less} healed, with the remainder be good to go.

That means if Wanda, having a two-thirds chance of making it through, comes up the anti-cropper and there's enough healing spells to go around, GK's attacking forces will have two-thirds of its force available effectively immediately, less those that bought it and had been previously decrypted, with the other third being ready to be turned into fodder- along with any Spacerock troops that have been croaked and are in reach. Even it GK does lose a portion of their forces due to being croaked again, the Dwagons are all fresh meat for the pliers, and are still the biggest and baddest thing on the playing field.

Falling, in Erf terms, would seem to be an int rather than a floating point effect.

Oh, and while I"m here... Bogroll's Dumper was a green dwagon, not a yellow. All this foofooraw about why the acid didn't get him is plainly answered if you just actually peek at Book one instead of arguing about it.

{edit} Ne'mind. I'm colorblind 'r something. Rre-commence argument.

{Re-edit edit} Oh, and it's already a food-fight. Nobody said that the food didn't have to be already eaten.

[Althernai]

Yes, but the entire context of that first paragraph is enemy units assaulting. Which means they would be on-turn, not off-turn.

I agree that it does not definitively establish that off-turn units can do the same, but it certainly suggests that from the inside, the garrison is treated as a single zone. My question was: is there any indication of the opposite?

[Selexor]

According to the Rule Of Falling revealed earlier, "decent" doesn't enter into it. You fall and: croak; are incapacitated; walk away from the landing. Distance fallen doesn't enter into it. One foot is the same as one mile.

If each result (randomly determined, I'm guessing) has an equal chance of occurring and they do drop en masse, that means one third of the force will croak, one third will be wounded and out of the fight un{til|less} healed, with the remainder be good to go.

Not quite.

Parson does note that falling is pretty much random... with the exception that height does have some bearing on it. And they're pretty high up right now, being covered by enemy archers... if Tramennis figures out what's happening, and he seems smart enough that he just might, he could simply open fire early on the falling units. Plus, if the falling units do land in some of the splattered Battlecrap, even if they're only incapacitated by the fall, or even just injured, the extra acid damage could easily kill them. Plus plus, if the roof of the Atrium is destroyed, who's to say that the units in the Tower couldn't just open fire? Parson notes that in Gobwin Knob, you could shoot at your own courtyard from the Tower or Battlements. If the Atrium roof is gone, Spacerock could likely do the same.

I'm just saying that to the knowledge we have available, the best-case assumption is that falling equals exactly a one-in-three chance of croaking, if circumstances are totally ideal. And these circumstances are absolutely not ideal. That said, I do acknowledge there's potential loopholes around this, and if they work, the plan has serious merit. So I guess we just have to see where this goes!

[Selexor]

I agree that it does not definitively establish that off-turn units can do the same, but it certainly suggests that from the inside, the garrison is treated as a single zone. My question was: is there any indication of the opposite?

The main reason for the different Garrison Zones is, just to sum up, to decide where you can attack the Garrison from if you're on the outside moving in. So the rules are very distinct about entering the Garrison.
There's much less evidence for the current situation because, well, I don't know if Erfworld has ever seen this before. I can think of no plausible scenario where enemy units entered a city and then ended their turn before the fight was over. The only way that might make sense is if someone like Charlie was experimenting with different ideas, and even that's a stretch, given that he seems to have only shown a serious interest in theoretical strategy after Parson's arrival.
We don't know if there's any barrier between Subzones. It could be an invisible Erfworld barrier, like between Major Zones... or like I suggested, it could be a physical barrier like a porticullis or closed door that Gobwin Knob can't destroy off-turn if they're not seige units. But the distinction between Subzones is clearly made, and while I agree there's no evidence to say conclusively that it would stop attacking units from moving off-turn, there's no evidence to say it wouldn't. That's why I said above that I'd give this a fair-even chance to go either way.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

1) Regular yellow dwagon crap is acidic, but not even strong enough to pierce an umbrella. So Parson told Sizemore to implant crap bombs to all yellow dwagons before taking off.

2)Regular crap is enough to wreak havoc.

both are possible, but personally, i like #1 more because it was foreshadowed twice and Hamster's idea

#1 also allows Jetstone to not look stupid, which would be nice.

[ftl]

I Jetstone deciding to open fire on the dragons during parley however would be, and would break parley. Considering that it has a half million penalty, which we suspect Jetstone can't even afford...

Wait, are you sure? I didn't think that there was any sort of penalty on the parley. Where did you get that?

At one point Tramennis was talking about making an alliance with GK with a penalty for breaking it, but that was talk about that hypothetical alliance which isn't going to happen, not the parley.

My question is as follows: What has to be done in order to end parley? Return everyone to their original places; or just decalre an end of it?

I had assumed there wasn't anything formally rules-enforced about the parley - it's a truce to talk, you end it by saying that you're ending parley and walking away. Or, if you're dishonorable, by attacking.

That's how we've seen parleys in Erf end so far, anyhow.

Addition question that just occured. What happens if you bankrupt yourself (since the parley penalty is indicated to be self-imposing)?

That's a good question though, given that there's other situations where bankrupting-due-to-a-penalty might happen. I don't know the answer, haven't an inkling.

[Trotsky]

I'm just saying that to the knowledge we have available, the best-case assumption is that falling equals exactly a one-in-three chance of croaking, if circumstances are totally ideal. And these circumstances are absolutely not ideal. That said, I do acknowledge there's potential loopholes around this, and if they work, the plan has serious merit. So I guess we just have to see where this goes!

Ahem

Also, I find it interesting that Wanda's chance of surviving a fall is only 4/9. Explanation below:

Needed for Wanda's fall to fail:
Straight survive the fall with only damage. Chance =1/3
Become incapacitated and be healed by Jack. Chance = 1/9 (explanation even further below)
Total = 4/9 (44.4 %)

Need for Wanda's fall to fail
Straight death. Chance 1/3
Become incapacitated and Jack dies or becomes incapacitated from fall. Chance = 2/9 (explanation even further below)
Total = 5/9

Chance for jack to capable of healing Wanda = (Chance Wanda becomes Incap.) * (Chance Jack can still cast after falling) = 1/3 * 1/3 = 1/9
Chance for jack to INcapable of healing Wanda = (Chance Wanda becomes Incap.) * (Chance Jack cannot still cast after falling) = 1/3 * 2/3 = 2/9

Assumptions:
Chance of any of the 3 options occurring is exactly 1/3.
Scrolls cannot be cast across zones and, therefore, Jack cannot heal Wanda before he himself drops down (if he can, chances of survival are 2/3)
Same basic thing for Wanda and decrypting
You cannot use a scroll when incapacitated to heal yourself (I don't recall if this were ever explicitly stated, though it heavily implied at the least)
The mount cannot be used to "cushion" the fall in any way (possible explanation why neither Parson or Banana were injured when falling)
The plan actually does involve falling.
Any other assumptions I made without consciously considering them first, feel free to point them out and laugh at my expense.
*added* The role height plays is insignificant.

So the rules are very distinct about entering the Garrison.

Which is why entering the Garrison through the Courtyard from the Airspace was not considered by Jetstone, it is a forbidden transition.

I can think of no plausible scenario where enemy units entered a city and then ended their turn before the fight was over.

Charlie did it in book 1, as close to an exact parallel as we can get. A large number of Archons stuck in the Airspace.