Book 2 – Text Updates 043

[Dante]

Depends on whether or not he's busy fending off another gobwin rebellion. That little plot thread (well, more of a fray by this point) is hanging ominously over his head.

[throwingrocks]

Very nice update. informative and revealing.

I HOPE it's a precursor to Ossamer turning. Or has some immediate relevance to the battle.

Spoiler: show

Say, Ossamer deciding to rescue Slately, and Trammenis using the Jetpack to also flee to safety. Or vice-versa.

Otherwise, it's an update that is probably out of place and may have been better to have been published later on, perhaps as an update between Books 2 and 3.

[Squishalot]

By the way, from this update, Slately could just raze a few of his own cities and generate the cash to make Tramennis heir.

Good idea, but not so good execution. Jillian picked up 40,000 Schmuckers for razing a Level 3 city. Charlie's comment earlier was that he'd get 5,000 per Archon dusted, and 25,000 for a captured one. We guestimated that there were around 25 Archons out there, meaning that he'd get about 165,000 Schmuckers, or about 4 razed L3 cities to get the same value.

Given that Slately wouldn't want to raze the Level 5 cities (Spacerock, Dhrystone, Jetstone), that Jetstone wouldn't have had more than about 12 cities initially (due to the diminishing returns cap) and that GK has taken cities en route to Spacerocok, it's unlikely that they really have that many cities to raze.

Realistically, what they should be doing is using up all the remaining tower defences to blast away the Archons to minimise the amount they need to borrow. The TDs aren't going to be of any use in a ground battle or if the city falls anyway.

[Fiendishrabbit]

I like the warlords name.

de Trop = Too much, meaning "superflous"

[Sam the Nanti-SARRMM]

Slately might not respect the commoners,

Commoners? What commoners? The only living things in erfworld are soldiers, animals (farms or wyld), the tribes (elves, gobwins, etc), casters, the related mounts, (Dragon, gwiffs, etc), and royalty along with overlords.

There are no citizens. At all. Cities don't pop serfs. Cities pop military related units. Twolls, elves, gobwins, spidews. Maybe the twoll who made Stanley a sandwich counts as a citizen since he's not in the army? Dunno. I just know that no regular citizen or commoner is popped.

[Dr Pepper]

Ah, Rob, you missed something here.

As Jillian closed on Progrock there should have been about 2 melee rounds in which the defence stiffened, showed some rudimentary tactics and formidable power. Maybe a couple of her flyers would fall from single arrow shots. Because afer all, Ansom should be able to give them his leadership and bonuses.

[Dr Pepper]

25 stabbers plus two royal warlords.. and yet a similar sized dwagon can't carry one heavy?

Dragons seem to have more pure destructive power then Mega's though. Seems a good trade off.

Dreadnoughts and carriers.

[Sam the Nanti-SARRMM]

Ah, Rob, you missed something here.

As Jillian closed on Progrock there should have been about 2 melee rounds in which the defence stiffened, showed some rudimentary tactics and formidable power. Maybe a couple of her flyers would fall from single arrow shots. Because afer all, Ansom should be able to give them his leadership and bonuses.

Ansom counts as a captured unit though. So I don't think they'd get his bonus since he is essentially incapacitated.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

Ansom's also not one to talk about mass executions, after Wiggley's first update. Frankly, so far it seems his only real complaint is her skipping conventional reconnaissance... Jetstone for life, I guess.

Aaah, that debate shall rise again! I suppose in Ansom's mind those were not executions. Just conversion by temporary incapacitation.

Which, of course, makes his insolent, arm-flailing objection to Ossomer's execution more interesting. There's a consistent contrast between Ansom and Wanda. Ansom expects people to follow his lead without natural or magical thinkamancy: giving orders to Jillian the "barbarian" in Book I, ordering the Sofa King's representative to stay in the fight, ordering elves to go into a dance-fight meatgrinder without leadership. Wanda, on the other hand, employs manipulation and heavy-handed magic, and left Ansom behind when attacking Spacerock because she was concerned about the influence of love (familial and romantic). I think part of Ansom's anger at Ossomer's execution was that he was looking forward to winning over his brother through force of argument, so he felt disrespected when she dismissed that approach and destroyed that opportunity.

By the way, from this update, Slately could just raze a few of his own cities and generate the cash to make Tramennis heir.

If you could remotely raze a city that is losing a siege, I would imagine it would become a common tactic that the Titans would find irksome, so they designed a mechanic to prevent it. Likely possibilities include requiring the CW or Ruler to issue the raze order locally or prohibiting the razing of a city that you still have garrison-class defenders in. I suspect the latter rule, or Bea probably would have done in Unaroyal that way instead of spending the treasury promoting units out of the garrison. (She could have kept the saved schmuckers out of GK's hands by having Ben pop in through the portal to take a gem back to Don.)

Whatever the mechanic is that prevents ninja-looting your own cities, it may be getting in Slately's way.

[fjolnir]

I like this update, it shows a very good divergence of characters from the start of the series. Jillian has gone from 'Barbarian with a troubled past.' to 'Bridge burning psychopath.' She was originally the perspective character for the series in a lot of respects. We find out about a lot of the various characters through their interactions with her. She is SUPPOSED to grate against us in a lot of respects. She Also represents the major theme of the Royals: "strength over cunning"

[JohnATallon]

Slately might not respect the commoners,

Commoners? What commoners? The only living things in erfworld are soldiers, animals (farms or wyld), the tribes (elves, gobwins, etc), casters, the related mounts, (Dragon, gwiffs, etc), and royalty along with overlords.

There are no citizens. At all. Cities don't pop serfs. Cities pop military related units. Twolls, elves, gobwins, spidews. Maybe the twoll who made Stanley a sandwich counts as a citizen since he's not in the army? Dunno. I just know that no regular citizen or commoner is popped.

Cities can pop courtiers, who can apparently manage cities like a warlord can, and are less expensive. The downside is that courtiers like to hold court. Don King thought they were more trouble than they were worth; it's implied some of them contributed to his son's attempt to take the throne.

Ah, Rob, you missed something here.

As Jillian closed on Progrock there should have been about 2 melee rounds in which the defence stiffened, showed some rudimentary tactics and formidable power. Maybe a couple of her flyers would fall from single arrow shots. Because afer all, Ansom should be able to give them his leadership and bonuses.

Ansom was not stacked with those Progrock defenders. He wasn't even in the same zone (they were on the ground, he was in the sky). Gwyffons and Megalogwyffons are supposed to have a great deal of move (in the 50s for gwyffons, at least) so they could be a long way away from any expected trouble. After all, Parson would have planned on Jetstone drawing most of their air units back in, and didn't expect Faq to attack like this at all. The regular leadership for that city may have been drawn off to help in the fight to take Spacerock.

[Aquillion]

Now I'm disappointed of Parson. The least I had expected of him would have been to make the city pretend to be without leadership so that Jillian would go in without looking left or right (which she promptly did), only to run right into his trap.

But well, there are enough cities ahead, so maybe he starts with two or three really undefended ones to make her even more careless before putting one into her way that really only pretends to be undefended.

There's no reason to think that Parson is even aware that this is happening. He was only put in charge of his side a few moments ago, and he's been completely busy with making sure that Wanda survives the turn since then -- he hasn't had a chance to turn his attention to anything else. And even if he did, it's not his turn, so there's very little he could do.

[BakaGrappler]

I LOVE this update!

I have had a craw up me bum for a while with Jillian's intellect encompassing only her sword arm and being a complete puppet of every other power in the story, and yet getting ahead despite it all. And now, finally, Ansom is calling her out on it. I am looking forward to Ansom doing it more and more. Finally, Jillian is going to be having someone tell her, "That is incredibly stupid, self-absorbed, and self-destructive." Finally! And it's someone she can't dismiss or just kill. The mad dog finally has a handler.

What I find really interesting in this update is:
"Queen!" Jillian snapped, then shut her mouth just as quickly. Oh, what was that? She was defending her Royal title to Ansom now?

What does this portend, my friends? Is there a natural Thinkamancy to any that is a royal, forcing them to think in terms of title and status, that propels them down the path of putting down the "less royal" ones that pop up in command? Could Ansom's re-popping as a Decrypted have freed him of that Thinkamany, allowing him to unexpectedly see his life without outside influence for the first time and overcome a Thinkamancy influence hatred for Stanley, and just find him annoying now?

Is the Titan's Mandate on the ruling class really just a natural Thinkamancy yoke?

[Finwe]

It seems to me that if Jillian really wants to know whether or not Ansom is a real person and not just a talking golem, she should hire dollamancer Alant Uring to run one of his tests.

[CelebrenIthil]

It seems to me that if Jillian really wants to know whether or not Ansom is a real person and not just a talking golem, she should hire dollamancer Alant Uring to run one of his tests.

Badum-pssh!

[Dr Pepper]

It seems to me that if Jillian really wants to know whether or not Ansom is a real person and not just a talking golem, she should hire dollamancer Alant Uring to run one of his tests.

Gold Star

[the_tick_rules]

or spend another night on the flying carpet. Make sure all the bits are where they used to be.

[Angband]

It seems to me that if Jillian really wants to know whether or not Ansom is a real person and not just a talking golem, she should hire dollamancer Alant Uring to run one of his tests.

Badum-pssh!

Great joke, but only one nitpick: Alant Uring would clearly have been a mathamancer.

[Grimnir]

What's with the gwyffon riders? Are they warlords or something? They look a bit too flamboyant for common soldiers.

Nice update, by the way. I must confess I don't read all of the text updates but reading about Jillian and Ansom is always fun.

[Snowtitan]

Ahh yes, I know (from recent experience) the sound of a city crashing - Wasn't tinny, more of a deep rumble!.
It's going to cost a bit than 40,000 schmuckers to fix Christchurch however (Assuming the raze bonus equals the raise cost - I know bad assumption), and we still have many building still standing!

Now that Jillian has Money, I'm expecting her to repay some to Transilvito, which would really get King Don out of the proverbial Bloop, and would mean that the money he's sending to Jetstone would actually be a good thing