Book 2 – Text Updates 041

[Lamech]

Again, wordlessly and purposefully, their Ruler passed among them and into the tower interior. Pierce had a brief ur ge to thumb his nose at the pompous little... But instead he pointed at him. "There's the one you'd have to convince, Ace. But you're on your own."

Okay casters are seeming increasing treacherous. Maggie, is part of a conspiracy, and brainwashes Stanley. Pierce doesn't like the king. Ace makes his own stuff wasting precious juice. Wanda destroys her side. Sizemore seems loyal I guess, as does Jack. Except Jack started as an FAQ UNIT! He's loyal to a different freaking side!
Also, we know know where the natural allies are; long suspected by me at least.

On tactics:
Also the reason they probably lack the force to get rid of the archons is they fired every single arrow in the tower into the courtyard. Thing of how funny it would have been if it was just Jack fell and Wanda got "captured" by an archon, and was hidden by a veil. "Wanda's not on the ground. Which means she's in the air. And we just wasted everything Crap." Also how would they even call up the archers on the wall with Wanda their?

I also think that Ossomer is much tougher, than Wanda. So if screening-with-archons blocks, say, 95% of the enemy arrows, the difference in damage needed becomes 20 times greater. That can be very significant.
Strictly speaking, they couldn't break the roof after loosing some units - it was said that units roll off the roof and fall elsewhere, so that units would be lost. But even if they could, drama was in Wanda taking a dive to the atrium at her own will, decision which Jetstone hasn't foreseen. And without that decision Jetstone would be in no danger.

Doubt it. Wanda went toe-to-toe with artifact wielding Ansom. Her shield bounces archon blasts off it. She overpowers Ossomer in combat. Maybe she is weaker, but I wouldn't think so.

Also as someone made the point before, archons can veil themselves. They got their foolamancy. It only takes one screw up an archon to blast the king. A couple screw ups and the archons might stun his whole stack like they did to Ossomer's. Sure they might shoot down 85% of them. Which is about three too few.

Finally, Parson is going for a win. Otherwise he wouldn't be going into Jetstone. Wanda would be going out. If Parson was simply trying to save Wanda, as soon as she got the dungeon she would be leaving. So even if Wanda had a better chance in the air, Parson still would have gone with the fall.

[fjolnir]

Before the Fall Exploit Trick the position was this for Jetstone: they are stuck up there, we have HOURS to finish them all off and we have the resources to do it. After the FET they still have the resources to take down all the aerial units, however they no longer have the time they needed to finish them off since the enemy can be shoved directly up their butt at any time. There is no chance that any unit in the air can escape on JS's turn since they cannot leave the hex.

I don't think the bounty on archons is public knowledge in jetstone, only trem got the offer...

to reiterate Jetstone wins when they were trapped in the air because time and resources were on their side. GK has a good chance of winning now because the pliers allow them to snowball during the fight.

[MarbitChow]

Imagine that Jetstone can only wipe out 5% of GK's forces each "combat round". (Note: Combat is simultaneous and real-time; I'm just using this for illustration.)

And I imagine that arrows can run out (which we know happens), and that Wanda and a sizeable force would have survived the barrage. And the recent assessment of the Archons and Ossomer's leadership bonus tilts this assessment into "Wanda was in no danger" territory. If they'd waste significant arrows and juice trying to get the what, 22 units GK still has airborne, imagine what they'd need to do against those 22 units, plus Wanda's bonus to the decrypted Archons, plus everything else around.

I still think you're underestimating the value of "it's still our turn, and they can't counterattack" as Jetstone's (former) primary combat advantage.
Arrows run out? Fabricate more. Move fabricators out to the tree hexes, spend a whole relative day making them, cart them back, and only 5 minutes have gone by in the Capital hex. Rinse and repeat.

[Ansan Gotti]

I think kagato23 has it exactly.

Separately, Rob indicated on his Facebook page (and if you're on Facebook, you should "like" the Erfworld Facebook page, if you haven't already) that he was a bit blocked in writing this update. If so, maybe he should get blocked more often, because this update was great! Of course, M*A*S*H was one of my all-time favorite shows, so I am loving Pierce.

Love the confirm about leadership adding to defense (which was heavily implied, but never explicitly stated until now, I believe). Also a clear and increasing buildup on the jetpack. Might be funny to see it go unused, after all of this.

[the_tick_rules]

if it was MASH pierce shouldn't he have made more bad jokes

[name lips]

PS: Tower and Courtyard are different zones, right?

And Wanda's in the Courtyard I think, while Slately's in the Tower. And Wanda's off-turn, and cannot move into the tower. Correct? Then Jetstone has all the time in the world.

Wanda has orders to take the portal which is in the dungons (a different zone from the garrison) so it seems they can move between ground zones. Love the way that Peirce thinks. Very similar to the character he is based on. Doing that properly is a lot harder than you may think.

The dungeon is in the same zone as the Courtyard, and is fair game for Wanda to move into off-turn.

Garrison Zone = Courtyard+Tower+Dungeon

You might be thinking of the Tunnel zone, which exists under the Dungeon in most cities (and which I consider to be the underground equivalent of the Airspace).

Tunnels border Dungeon. Airspace borders Tower. Courtyard borders City (and Walls? Not sure).

From there, Tunnels, Airspace, and City (Walls?) border the adjacent hexes. You must enter via one of those three routes before you can get a crack at one of the Garrison subzones. And once you get the Garrison subzone, you are free to attack the other two Garrison subzones without expending Move. Once you have all three, you capture the entire City.

GK "cheated" by managing to access the Courtyard via the Airspace, which you're not supposed to be able to do. Jetstone had quite reasonably put its Casters and Archers in the Tower to defend against GK's flying units, and hidden its melee units in the Courtyard where GK shouldn't have been able to get at them.

Spacerock also has the unique special of a large, roofed-in Courtyard which I assume gives some sort of bonus, but lacks a Tunnel zone.

[elecampane]

I also think that Ossomer is much tougher, than Wanda. So if screening-with-archons blocks, say, 95% of the enemy arrows, the difference in damage needed becomes 20 times greater. That can be very significant.
Strictly speaking, they couldn't break the roof after loosing some units - it was said that units roll off the roof and fall elsewhere, so that units would be lost. But even if they could, drama was in Wanda taking a dive to the atrium at her own will, decision which Jetstone hasn't foreseen. And without that decision Jetstone would be in no danger.

Doubt it. Wanda went toe-to-toe with artifact wielding Ansom. Her shield bounces archon blasts off it. She overpowers Ossomer in combat. Maybe she is weaker, but I wouldn't think so.

Well, Ansom was alone, and she had a stack of uncroacked flyers (it was uncroaked warlord who stroke Ansom down). Her shield has helped her (but not unipegtaur she was riding) against single blast of archonts shockamancy, but I doubt it would help against rain of arrows. So my point remains: Ossomer probably can take more damage than Wanda, so even if it is indeed difficult to kill Ossomer, it doesn't mean that Wanda wasn't in danger before performing falling trick.

Also as someone made the point before, archons can veil themselves. They got their foolamancy. It only takes one screw up an archon to blast the king. A couple screw ups and the archons might stun his whole stack like they did to Ossomer's. Sure they might shoot down 85% of them. Which is about three too few.

Erm, I certanly remember making that point myself:

As I understand it, difficulty is not in killing a specific unit in the airspace (casters didn't say they can't take down Ossomer, they said it was not so easy), but in killing all of the enemy units in the airspace to evacuate one extremely valuable (and perhaps vulnerable, since Slately has seen only one battle) unit. How can they be sure, that there's no any veiled Archons left? Perhaps even one could kill Slately, much like Bogroll has killed Ansom.

, so I won't argue with that

Finally, Parson is going for a win. Otherwise he wouldn't be going into Jetstone. Wanda would be going out. If Parson was simply trying to save Wanda, as soon as she got the dungeon she would be leaving. So even if Wanda had a better chance in the air, Parson still would have gone with the fall.

Totally agree, but discussion was about whether the situation before the falling trick was as bad for Wanda, as everyone talked about it, considering how difficult taking Ossomer alone would be, according to casters.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Totally agree, but discussion was about whether the situation before the falling trick was as bad for Wanda, as everyone talked about it, considering how difficult taking Ossomer alone would be, according to casters.

And I don't need to fuel it, it goes on under its own inertia. And probably will, for a while. Shoite. What have I wrought?

[DevilDan]

Mastered the trick o overthinking and underthinking the same thing at the same time. Brilliant line.

And, of all things, a M*A*S*H reference! Erfworld just keeps on giving!

[Trotsky]

I feel better interpreting this as a decision being avoided (dusting Ossomer) rather than anything else. Certainly not a reliable tactical assessment.

Well, we know Ansom's opinion of Caster's tactical assessments. Since he would have mostly known the abilities of Jetstone casters it is entirely possible they are all just crap at tactics. Add to that an elephant and you get even worse tactical assessments. Just about everything else about the tactical assessments has already been said.

[Lamech]

Finally, Parson is going for a win. Otherwise he wouldn't be going into Jetstone. Wanda would be going out. If Parson was simply trying to save Wanda, as soon as she got the dungeon she would be leaving. So even if Wanda had a better chance in the air, Parson still would have gone with the fall.

Totally agree, but discussion was about whether the situation before the falling trick was as bad for Wanda, as everyone talked about it, considering how difficult taking Ossomer alone would be, according to casters.

I recall some mention about how the two tactical situations clashed. Before: Wanda's in trouble. After: The air units are safeish. It could have been: Air units were safeish both before and after.

[BLANDCorporatio]

I recall some mention about how the two tactical situations clashed. Before: Wanda's in trouble. After: The air units are safeish. It could have been: Air units were safeish both before and after.

Pretty much. Now that we all understand each other can we let it die?

[Atomic]

I feel like I always say this, but what a great update. A few lines were clever/funny enough that I just felt like quoting them...

"You don't like what?" said Dittomancer Lloyd, testily. "What don't you like?"

Ace shot him a glare with spring-loaded action.

A healthy, breathing casualty.

Lloyd walked over and patted him on the shoulder. "There, there."

The skill and talent Rob demonstrates every single text/comic update just amazes me... It's those small little details about characters or those subtle nuances that really make a story, and that's exactly what Rob has done. Blah. I love this comic. Haha.

As far as strategies, maybe I'm over (under?) thinking things...but I just assumed the entire conversation was the three (other) casters trying to convince Ace not to do anything stupid. It reminded me of conversations I've had with friends; one friend wants to do something dangerous/hazardous, and the entire conversation turns into the rest of us talking him down. Usually with suspect-logic and vague reasoning. As far as Archon-survival, part of me imagined them as being the easiest to survive, anyway.

I imagined the initial volleys from the Jetstone archers being enough to take down most of the Dwagons, then then Tower Defenses/remaining arrows would be spent on those 'higher priority'-targets. The fact that the Gobwin Knob strategy (prior to Parson) was to try 'catching' the Dwagons as they fell meant that even Jack (a Masterclass Foolamancer) didn't have faith in the abilities of the Archons/his remaining juice. Then again, perhaps his was underestimating them in a similar way that Maggie calls them "Primitive Thinkamancers"...but I'd rather think that they just didn't have the ability to survive in any reasonable sort of way.

EDIT: Let it die? Never! We'll fight every theory and hypotheses until the bitter end...then we'll just Decrypt and reanimate it at a later time and in a different thread. Such is life on the Erfworld-forums.

[Crivens]

Hey (first time posting here).

The one thing I didn't see mentioned that I would have thought relevant to the discussion is that when Tramennis leaves the tower, the casters and archers lose his leadership bonus; the assessment of the situation (mopping up the air units) given in the update should differ from the pre-exploit assessment (if not for the other good suggestions made on the forum, here) with the warlord bonus removed (and, as Parson remarks, the world revolves around added bonuses). Even if his leadership isn't as high as Ossomer's or Ansom's, having it added to the archers' attack power might, I imagine, take the situation from Unilateral mop up to Good Luck With That (or, if there are 'combat rounds' as one person posited, reduce the percentage of casualties incurred per combat round while firing from the tower, again a concern if Jetstone's defense is time sensitive).

Thanks. Just $0.02!

Crivens

Edit: Never mind -- "The Leadership Bonus of a Warlord is conferred upon all Units in the same stack.

The Leadership Bonus of a Chief Warlord applies to all units of their capital. A Chief Warlord in the field confers his full bonus to the units in his stack, one-half his bonus (rounded down) to all his units in the hex, and one-third (rounded down) to those in the same battlespace." -- http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/Leadership

[fjolnir]

In the previous position GK was doomed because they had no escape route (that JS knew of) and JS had plenty of resources to finish off everything before the turn ended...

[Sylvan]

Like several previous posters, I think Kagato nailed the description of why it would be a pain to clear out every flier from the battlespace now, I also think marbitchow has the right idea about Spacerock having limited time before some dwagons are in their face now, while they didn't have that problem before. Also, I think BlandCorporatio said here....

Aww, zones and sub-zones. Ok, that works. Carry on. Nothing to see here.

That he totally gets the "they now have limited time" aspect of the discussion. That confusion has been cleared away.

Totally agree, but discussion was about whether the situation before the falling trick was as bad for Wanda, as everyone talked about it, considering how difficult taking Ossomer alone would be, according to casters.

And I don't need to fuel it, it goes on under its own inertia. And probably will, for a while. Shoite. What have I wrought?

And I'm sorry Bland, I know you said it was going in circles and you were out of the discussion, so if this doesn't do anything to break that then I will step out of the discussion myself, I just wanted to point out that I think this is the key point

Now, as Jack speculates, his plan could have worked, sure. *snip* And that assumes that nobody gets lucky: there was always a chance that wanda or ossamer or whomever would still be hit and downed. Jack's plan was by his own admission a maybe.

Also, this makes a bit of a difference, because who knows how long JS could have been sitting there firing arrows?

Arrows run out? Fabricate more. Move fabricators out to the tree hexes, spend a whole relative day making them, cart them back, and only 5 minutes have gone by in the Capital hex. Rinse and repeat.

Maybe not quite that long, but still......... Maybe it would have eventually gotten down to Wanda, Jack, whichever high level Warlords had survived, and a few archons hiding around in corners of the cities airspace, and then hightailing it the hell out of there. *IF* Jack's plan had worked, *IF* none of the archers got a lucky shot in at Wanda.

Wanda, Jack, a few Archons and maybe a few high level decrypted Warlords merely surviving to run away, at least 14 turns by dwagon relay away from the city of GK, does not sound like much of a win to me, especially when the chance of Wanda surviving the turn might have been less than the chance of Wanda surviving the Harvest/Heavy exploits.

Also, I totally did this earlier post where I theorized that the GK Airforce might have actually been able to do significant damage to the city of Spacerock depending upon whether or not the yellows could crap indefinitely. This update seems to further support my theory, as I mostly based it on the possibility that the yellows could fly around dodging arrows for a while if other dwagon types screened for them/archons did their thing.

Oh, and one last thing.......

We now know definitively that units can screen (even bloody archons can, apparently, and we know that one ain't so tough againts arrows).

I stood in the road with them and led 'em myself, just pounded at the gate while Broadway Tony took the Goyles and birds up and hit the wall defenders. Bats flyin' around takin' arrows for me... It was a scene.

.

We've known for quite some time that even bats can screen effectively for arrows.

[Decorus]

The current tactical situation is different then before.

1. GK is broken into two forces A = Aerial and B = Inside the Atrium
2. The tower doesn't have as many archers left given they expended thier ammo shooting at the ones who landed in the Atrium.
3. All of GK's Forces were in a single spot now the Archons have scattered across the city broken down into small stacks clustered around Archons with leadership.

In short Jetstone has used a significant amount of resources and while they could still probably kill all the remaining aerial forces its not guaranteed anymore they also need to conserve for the newly decrypted army that is poised on attacking the tower soon.

[atalex]

Oh dear, dear, dear.

Also, nice to see some justification why they don't attack the remaining GK-units in the airspace.

That's why I'm not appoint with this update. IF Archons are so tough and their Foolamancy so effective, IF Ossomer is so high leadership and so easily restackable ... what was the problem before again? We now know definitively that units can screen (even bloody archons can, apparently, and we know that one ain't so tough againts arrows). Wanda, in the air, was never in any danger. Heck, right now it looks like they could have waited out Jetstone's turn with ease. Or whatever, really; they could have waited for the tower/AA to exhaust then fallen by harvest, if they were in such a rush. Really, now it looks like any option from GK was a good option for GK, and certainly not like a situation where Jetstone would have them by the cojones, even apparently.

I think the point is that JS could take out Ossomer and the Archons but doing so while attempting to evacuate Slately by air is unnecessarily risky, given that croaking Slately is the victory condition for GK. Better to conserve the casters juice for the unknown contingencies to come.

[atalex]

I think it is less an issue of "can't" nuke the archons out of the sky, and more an issue of "can't nuke the archons out of the sky reasonably under current conditions"
{snip}
It was always a matter of time to shoot down GK's forces, the thing that has changed is who has the time to spare.

That's reasonable.

BUT, what's in doubt, at least in my mind, is that Wanda was in a real danger before. And it's also doubtful that the situation was so dire for GK that they were at Jetstone's mercy. Ossomer's bonus and Archon foolamancy, apparently, makes it a difficult task to shoot down one specific unit (now, Ossomer; but just as well, Wanda). Is that task any easier than the many chances Wanda had to croak until now? She needed to survive the fall, she needed to stay healthy or at least Jack to be so, she had to dodge arrows in the Atrium and find leadership, then regroup ... I'm just not sure she had it worse while in the air.

All the falling business then is just optional icing. All the drama seems slightly forced.

This update didn't happen.

You do realize, don't you, that you're basing your reaction entirely on the tactical assessment of a Healamancer who is expressly based on a combat-averse fictional character.

EDIT: And others have beaten to this point. Never mind.

[fjolnir]

You do realize, don't you, that you're basing your reaction entirely on the tactical assessment of a Healamancer who is expressly based on a combat-averse fictional character.

It's the tactical assessment of the person with the most combat experience in the group.