Book 2 – Text Updates 036

[hajo]

What happens if you bankrupt yourself ?

Assuming that all upkeep has to be paid at start of turn, this would be the time when the ruler of a side gets to decide what units/building to keep/disband/raze.

But we haven't seen the exact rules and sequence of this housekeeping.

[Sieggy]

Folks, the success of the falling tactic is a function of Fate, as expressed in Plotamancy, not Numbermancy. Your conjectures regarding the probability of Wanda's (or anyone else's) falling unhurt, dead, or injured are moot. Those who live or die will do so because Plot and Fate compel it, and those injured will be so because the Story requires it. The Numbers will fall where Fate decrees.

Which is a polite way of saying that I don't think Rob dice rolls the plotline of the story . . .

[Atomic]

Bah, you guys are blowing the "falling" statistics out of proportion. While the majority (if not all) of the dwagons are likely to die in this battle (I hope Red survives... Hes made it so far!!), I'm just not seeing how Wanda/ Jack/ the rest of our merry band are in any sort of danger...from falling-related-incidents, at least.

Exhibit A.) Summer Intermission 32 - Parson is on Banana, and Banana falls. The point of interest being that Parson doesn't take any damage (as far as we can tell, but Occam's Razor, et al...) until he rolls (falls) off of Banana... So who's to say that the Gobwin Knob units won't just strap themselves onto their dwagons, tell the things to stop flying, and then enjoy their cushioned landing? So what if the odds of a dwagon dying is something like 5/9? As long as Wanda doesn't decide that fate will save her if she sky-dives, she'll just land with her dwagon and instantly count as being in the Garrison.

Ooooor, if that's too simple [read: easy] for some of you, there's a second possibility...

Exhibit B.) My theory since, like, a week ago, has been that we'll see nearly all the dwagons/hobgobwins crash-land and set up a perimeter... Then, once things are safe, Wanda/ Jack's dwagons will hover *just* above the Garrison and some infantry/Warlords will merely lower them to safety.

Pre-post-edit: Sieggy is correct, of course... But where's the fun in that? Let's keep speculating!

[Selexor]

I did read Trotsky's math, and while I see no fault with it, there's two extra factors there that I think matter. One is that incapacitated equals croaked if you take any damage at all... and if they get hurt by the acidic crap in the Atrium, or shot by someone from the tower, the fallen units are toast. I know, that's still only a vague possibility at this point, but it adds to the risk. And it means that even an "incapacitated" or "injured but alive" outcome could take on additional damage and equal "croaked".

The bigger problem is that while Parson did acknowledge that the outcome of falling is essentially random between incapacitated, injured or croaked... random does not necessarily mean they're all equally possible. If I take a die, paint four sides red and the other two sides green, the result of a roll is still completely random BUT the odds of rolling red are twice as high as rolling green.
You can apparently croak from a three-feet fall, but that doesn't mean you have a 1/3 chance of doing so. It might be extremely unlikely, just randomly possible. But, since we know that height is a factor when falling, going from the Airspace to the Garrison would drastically tilt the scales to make "croaked" a more likely outcome.

So while I cannot claim Trotsky's math is inaccurate - in fact I think it's very well laid out - it's still with the best-case scenario, and even then she's got less than a 50% chance of surviving no matter what happens. With other factors laid in, her odds of survival could be considerably lower than that.


Also, regarding Charlie's Archons in the Gobwin Knob airspace... true, that is the closest we've come to a scenario like this, but it's not quite the same. Charlie had allies in the city hex, his Archons weren't being threatened by air defences because there were none, and he had no ground units in the Courtyard to let us see how Sub-Zones work off turn. So it's close, but mostly it just shows how unusual the current situation for Gobwin Knob is.

[Selexor]

Bah, you guys are blowing the "falling" statistics out of proportion. While the majority (if not all) of the dwagons are likely to die in this battle (I hope Red survives... Hes made it so far!!), I'm just not seeing how Wanda/ Jack/ the rest of our merry band are in any sort of danger...from falling-related-incidents, at least.

Exhibit A.) Summer Intermission 32 - Parson is on Banana, and Banana falls. The point of interest being that Parson doesn't take any damage (as far as we can tell, but Occam's Razor, et al...) until he rolls (falls) off of Banana... So who's to say that the Gobwin Knob units won't just strap themselves onto their dwagons, tell the things to stop flying, and then enjoy their cushioned landing? So what if the odds of a dwagon dying is something like 5/9? As long as Wanda doesn't decide that fate will save her if she sky-dives, she'll just land with her dwagon and instantly count as being in the Garrison.

Ooooor, if that's too simple [read: easy] for some of you, there's a second possibility...

Exhibit B.) My theory since, like, a week ago, has been that we'll see nearly all the dwagons/hobgobwins crash-land and set up a perimeter... Then, once things are safe, Wanda/ Jack's dwagons will hover *just* above the Garrison and some infantry/Warlords will merely lower them to safety.

Pre-post-edit: Sieggy is correct, of course... But where's the fun in that? Let's keep speculating!

Much as I hate to say it, I do think that Exhibit A is "too easy". I know that's a generic response, but basically what you're suggesting is crash-landing a Dwagon and walking away from the wreckage unharmed. Parson noted that his fall was unnaturally slow; either Banana's attempt to fly slowed their fall so it wasn't fatal, or that archon that we saw watching wasn't filming him, she was using Changemancy (or another spell) to slow his fall, or perhaps another one was. Either option could explain Parson's survival, and at the same time, be something we can't rely on working here (with the possible exception of an Archon casting a spell, if that's what it was).
And yeah, even before I say this I know it's a cop-out, but really: It's Parson. We don't even know if the guy can croak, given that so many of Erfworld's rules only seem to halfway apply to him. Just 'cause he crashed a dwagon and survived, in circumstances that were far out of the ordinary, doesn't mean anybody else could pull it off.

Exhibit B... we've already had Jack reveal via Parson's Klog that if you fly close to the ground and dismount, it counts as a fall. Being lifted down by another unit might work, but it's iffy at best. Seems like a loophole that Parson would have thought of. But the way that Klog entry looks, dismounting by any method other than "Your mount has landed and allows you to climb off" counts as falling. Just... maybe not from as far, which like I said in the post above, could lower the chance of croaking.

In any case, the theories might work... and obviosly Parson has something planned. I'm looking forward to seeing what, and either of these might be it.

[Nihila]

Much as I hate to say it, I do think that Exhibit A is "too easy". I know that's a generic response, but basically what you're suggesting is crash-landing a Dwagon and walking away from the wreckage unharmed. Parson noted that his fall was unnaturally slow; either Banana's attempt to fly slowed their fall so it wasn't fatal, or that archon that we saw watching wasn't filming him, she was using Changemancy (or another spell) to slow his fall, or perhaps another one was. Either option could explain Parson's survival, and at the same time, be something we can't rely on working here (with the possible exception of an Archon casting a spell, if that's what it was).

Banana couldn't carry Parson, remember. If a unit that a Dwagon can carry orders said dwagon to slowly land, it might work, and minimize damage to the rider. Or damage to a mount might just be damage to a mount, and not applied to the rider. I like the idea of landing the dwagons and then dismounting, especially since Parson has some experience with that.

And I'd like to congratulate the forum as a whole for making this reactions thread the longest ever. We do like to discuss the weirdest things now, don't we ?

[Kyle]

And I'd like to congratulate the forum as a whole for making this reactions thread the longest ever. We do like to discuss the weirdest things now, don't we ?

It's the suspense from waiting to see what Parson will actually do, people have to find some way of expressing their crazy ideas in the time between entries .

[Ytaker]

We had a big discussion on the mechanics of falling, and another debate on Kingworld. A lot of material.

[Dr Pepper]

Yes. We are the McLaughlin Group of webcomic fandom.

[Sieggy]

And the poor schmoos who just buy the book and read it won't really appreciate the subtlety of it all, and how it hangs together so artfully. They'll just read a comic book in one sitting while most of it goes right over their heads . . . Oh, well, pearls and swine and all that . . .

[BLANDCorporatio]

Indeed. This thread has over 400 replies, but there is yet a long way to go to get over the magic number.

I wonder, what would an update have to contain, in order to get that many replies. Maybe Jillian, who's secretly an Archon, creates 3 clones of herself to form a 4-link and cast the uber powerful spell Deus Ex Jillianae, which turns out to be 2001's Star Baby aka Charlie aka young Parson Gotti, who then jauntes back in time to oversee the creation of Erfworld before splitting up in two personalities one of which ends up on Dirtworld forgetting that the other exists.

Nah. That won't happen. It's a bit too much going on for just one update.