Book 2 – Text Updates 051

[MichaelR138]

What part of her duty was it to see that no one but her stacked with her knights? That is implicitly stated as her reason for leaving her assigned battle station, which is defined as Dereliction of Duty.

No. No it isn't. Not in Erfworld. Your Duty is a force that compels you to defend your side, even if that means disobeying orders. A Paladin would feel the pull of Duty much more than a bureaucrat, if Erfworld has them. She's derelicting her orders, yes, but she's acting in her idea of the interests of her side. Thus, she's doing her Duty.

Wrong because the reason she initially left her post had nothing to do with the betterment of her sides position, it was just that someone else was leading her knights into battle.

And your definition of duty would be anarchy on a battle field where every warlord was free to indulge their own whims and no one follows the orders given. Your duty is what compels you to follow your orders unless there is an URGENT need to disobey. At the point Artemis abandoned her post, there was no urgent need. There was just another warlord stacking with HER knights. That there became one by the time she got to the tower does not excuse her dereliction of duty. That she is choosing the way most likely to bring her personal flory over the way most likely to preserve her side only reinforces that she has very little concept of the term duty except to use as a reason to promote herself.

By your definition Webanar would have been doing his duty if he had shanked Jillian early in book one, or arrested her, or any of dozens of other things he wanted to do because he knew she was bad news for his side, but his duty forced him to follow Ansom's orders in regards to Jillian no matter how wrong he thought they were. We also have seen another character with low Duty and how she defends her actions. Wanda got her side wiped out, disobeys orders all the time, and generally indulges in whatever whim strikes her, always while defending her actions as duty to fate or some other clap trap. No one thinks they have low duty, they just find justifications for not doing their duty.

Michael

[drachefly]

I mean, you stated your opinion, we stated ours. We both had a right to. If you can't appreciate that there are people who disagree with your interpretation when you criticize the work of art, then we can't have a calm discussion. Unless you're trolling, in which case calm discussions are off the table altogether.

Be fair - Quimper had just been accused of being a PlotArmor sockpuppet and a troll. A little defensiveness under these circumstances is understandable.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Here is the thing, the dwagons can't be placed in the tunnels. So where should we put them? In the tower requires an attack.
Okay so what about the atrium? Well we can put them close to the tower or away from the tower. Away from the tower? Well then any archers deploying out of the tower can start well away from the dwagons. (Something Artemis spent time to do) And units can spread out out flank and surround the dwagons before engaging, giving them better positioning and reducing the effect of AoE's.

True, although I'm not sure of the state of the archers at the moment. Trem hasn't got them an order to continue to fire indirectly into the atrium or got them to move to a new location and then begin firing indirectly into the atrium again. So he must either have been planning on saving them, or a good chunk are out of arrows or... I don't know. Slately is planning to go to extremes to take down GK flyers, one would think if lots of archers were still available they would figure into the plan. At the time though coming under fire from archers doesn't seem to have figured into Wanda or Sylvia's desire to rush the tower.

So the dwagons should be close to the tower. Okay so we have dwagons up close to the tower, should we attack or should we not attack? We should attack. It inflicts free damage to the tower. It has forced the hand of the king, forced the hand of Artemis reducing there options. It has removed Tram, and damaged knights.

So clearly we need to attack. The other option includes sitting next the tower wasting potential breathes, and sitting in the middle of the atrium to get surrounded, and swarmed. Maybe Sylvia didn't make the best tactical decisions about the details but I for one vote for not second guessing with our limited knowledge.

I'm not really saying attacking the tower at this stage doesn't make sense. Or couldn't be a good idea - as far as Wanda knows (who gave the order, and made certain Sylvia knew it was her order and that an order from Parson on the subject hadn't been given) Slately is up there with insufficient forces to safely evacuate via the airspace (she knows he has some pegatuars). He is essentially trapped in the tower unless he descends and leave on foot.

Killing Slately insta-wins the battle for them. So yes. I'm just questioning if it is being done in the best way to maximize chances while minimizing losses (and we know it has been done without consultation with Parson and his bracer - so we don't know what if the chance of toppling the tower was great enough to start with to warrant the quick attack) because what we do know for sure is that if Sylvia fails to kill the king and looses dwagons/heavies/knights/warlords in the process then the battle to come would be harder to win. Parson is heading there for a reason, and it was for that battle.

We don't know what the other dwagons are doing, all we know is Sylvia seems to have gone straight in with only purples (a weaker type) into a kind of unknown situation (since she couldn't have known what forces, if any, would be on the other-side of the big gate) which, with my imperfect knowledge of the atrium situation, seems riskier then it has to be, and could potentially result in GK having to try and win a far bigger battle with fewer dwagons and without whoever was riding them.

Furthermore Artemis and Tram have also made the correct options. The tower is about to fall; leadership must be removed (so the dwagons break off and go for units). Tram had to rescue the king while their was still time. Yes they are really bad options, charging into dwagons and abandoning archers, but the other option was the king's death.

Agreed, for Artemis at least Sylvia has forces the issue - a direct counter action had to be performed otherwise the tower would be lost.

Presuming (and since it isn't magic, this should be a safe presumption) that detecting a "stealthed" stack doesn't require warlords to detect, every GK unit in the atrium should have had a chance to detect Artemis's stack. I'm tending towards calling foul on new "standard" Erfworld rules being introduced into the story.

I'm not sure what units are left in the atrium other then dwagons, Wanda did call for anything tunnel capable to stack up. Maybe some heavies or something. I would guess it is no different to real world situations. Having lots of troops around will increase the chances someone will spot your special forces creeping between cover etc, but it doesn't make it impossible. Especially if all those troops happened to be looking the wrong way or something.

Plus, I have no idea of the exact layout. She talks of creeping through carpteted hallways, so it probably wouldn't be easy to see her from the atrium. She does say there is a risk though, as there are any troops around. She describes progressing to a corridor that opens into the atrium - so I picture it as her sneaking down corridors in the halls along side the atrium (not through the atrium), down one that opens into the atrium that evidently no one is looking at and snipes from there). Assuming spot rolls and all of that I would think no actually being visable to the enemy troops would place big penalties on spotting them, and if no one was looking at the door she set up in, same. Erfworlders aren't telepaths or precogs afterall (except the telepaths and precogs).

Remember, we've only seen Artemis from the point of view of ARTEMIS HERSELF. So we know she THINKS of herself as a skilled, smart soldier and commander, who was sidelined in a city for stupid politics that wasn't her fault.

Heh, true. I probably should have written "as portrayed in this particular kind of action" - I have no idea what her qualities are like as a higher level commander and I do hope she hasn't totally left the other guys with Trem, including those warlords, as I guess Warlord Grey Brows is one at least, without some kind of direction and just taken herself off with her knights. Or someone else has taken control of the bigger situation (like Grey Brows) and thinks it is good/right/practical Artemis is following this course. She is being portrayed as a skilled, smart soldier and commander of a small unit. She does say, afterall - "She hated mass battles."

And I did criticize her rushing in and attitude towards Trem when she saw him order her knights into the tower in a previous thread when it was clear she had less then full knowledge of what was going on. Now that she is actually there she seems to know what she is doing, in the context of her small unit tactics (since we don't know if she looked at the larger battle at all).

In her favor, she does recount how
1) As a level 1, she was a great hunter, and her stack didn't need to touch their provisions.
2) She saved Forthewin's life with a good shot against a Woodsy Owl.
3) She had a bad feeling about the dwagon bombing.

I would add: "Glancing up once more, she thought of Prince Ossomer. She had been part of his campaign against Haggar; her Knights were the key factor at the Battle for Toughskin. Prince Sammy actually had to withdraw from the city on his turn, or be overrun. At Court she was still despised, but Ossomer knew. Had known." Although to take the other side we don't know her actual role in that. Plus her training up herself and knights over hundreds of turns - they certainly seem to respect her.

As for the against - maybe. As you say with number one, we can't tell. Not sure about the prince getting an arrow in the eye counting against her to much. She does admit to drink playing a part in that, and she was only drinking to get Ansom to the point where he'd participate. A silly thing to do, but not necessarily indicative of her skill as either a soldier or commander to drink a bit to much and mess up a trick shot while off duty. Leaving her post is a mark against her, although I'm not sure she wouldn't have left no orders (not sure who the higher ups would be, since Trem then was knocked out and I guess she can't quickly communicate with Slately or the next highest warlord). As for four... eehhh, I don't know. She isn't a superhuman, there is only so many things she can take into account.

Thanks for suporting my perspective from Sylvia (taking the iniative to force the enemy to come out of their fortress or be buried alive), but I must point out the grave error on Trems part. Going to the frontline himself. His combat stats clearly aren't that high, considering he was the only one being knocked out by the dwagon's breath. That's why you have subordinates and other warlords. Trems should've sent a tough (but expendable) warlord to do the scouting. So if the enemy shows up, at least Jetstone doesn't lose yet another CWL on the same day.

He didn't put himself on the front line, the front line just happens to be a couple of meters away from the stairs to the tower. And without a thinkamancer communication takes time, time they don't have. He descended the stairs to scout, scouts by walking a few meters forward, looking through the big gate, seeing what he needed (that is, that the base of the tower is clear), had the gate shut and instantly sent word to Slately to come down. His choices, I guess, where to stay at the top of the tower or to descend, see the way is clear and go somewhere else, leaving another warlord in charge of getting Slately down (and increasing communication time). The former might actually have worked out better, since he could deal with Slately directly, but we only know that because we, as readers, have more knowledge about what is going on.

Trem's plan was working fine, if Slately had done his part Trem and Slately wouldn't be in danger, they'd be safely away from the tower. Of course Slately does seem to be in the process of trying to do something good for his side, his biggest mistake is not sending a message to Trem telling him something, anything, causing him to delay at the towers base. I am thinking, perhaps, since it is clear the tower is in danger Slately will be sending all no essential troops down to help defend it/counter attack with Trem (and he has some good ones), just keeping the casters, knights etc he needs to mount up the doubled Unipegataurs.

I agree Trems is kinda out of options and needs to get the king out of the city ASAP, but he insisted on doing everything himself, and that's plain bad. He has a precious warlord with the rare archery special, and he just lets her sit idle. Trems has four fully operational mancers under his command, but only used them to activate the tower defenses.

I'd say again only minutes have passed. The mancers were going to be part of the kings bodyguard, and he probably isn't thinking far beyond "get the king to safety then go from there", I can forgive him for not instantly thinking "We have a disgraced lv 8 warlord on the walls, how can I use her?" Especially since he has lots of warlords.

[Dancing Cthulhu]

Just a couple of musings on the situation:

Slyvia's flanks: There are plenty of extra units in the atrium doing nothing. She knows that there are lots of enemy infantry around. She can presumably see that the atrium has more than one entrance. (She certainly knows that there is an entrance to the portal room). How long would it have taken for her to direct the other dwagons/heavy hobgobwins to watch the other doors? Not that long. Artemis conveyed a pretty complicated message with just hand signals and natural tinkamancy so it stands to reason that the much simpler message of "watch the other doors" could be conveyed pretty easily to the remaining dwagons/heavy hobs. I think it seems pretty clear that she was acting at least recklessly.

That being said had she waited 20 seconds to direct the guarding of her flanks she might not have gotten lucky and hit Trem and the knights so in this case her recklessness paid off.

Artemis' fitness as commander: One of the primary benefits of having a warlord around is that they can act on their own initiative for the benefit of their side. It is not clear what she intended to do when she got down there but her internal monologue suggests that she might have been going to assist in getting the rest of the infantry into battle formations. Now she did start down when she saw Trem stack with 'her' knights so she may have had other intentions, but she certainly recognized the virtue of Trem's plan to take the stack of knights, storm the tower and get the king out since she was going to implement it herself as soon as Sylvia was taken out of the picture

I agree with this, well said.

I think I should point out that if ANYONE is holding the idiot ball here, it's Slately. If he had evacuated the tower when Trem wanted (ordered) him to do so, he would be safely out of harms way by now, and their side secure from disbanding. Instead, he 'called a friend' to borrow money so he could appoint a replacement and then go die gloriously so he wouldn't end as a total loser. So now he's stuck at the top of the tower, waiting for his casters to pull something out of the collective asses to save his, and STILL not getting out while he can still do so.

While I think Slately's plan has some good points (if Jetstone has to loose someone and have the best chance of carrying on then Trem would probably be a better choice for these dark times then Slately) some of the execution is a problem, namely he hasn't let Trem know what he is planning, plus Trem was never fully committed to fighting for Spacerock to begin with. He always left the possibility open he would retreat, rather then risk giving GK a huge army, after the king was safely away.So, really, Slately and Trem may well have both lived, making the immediate question of an heir less important.

The biggest mistake is not communicating with Trem about what he is planning. Now Slately isn't a war leader, so he probably doesn't appreciate the whole importance of time, but with Slately's safety the most important thing right now by making Trem wait he is keeping Trem from moving on to other matters.

Though I will say I'm not sure about the "to save his" part - Slately's only concern is ensuring Trem becomes the royal heir. He is prepared to die getting the schmuckers to do that.

As disappointing as Ossomer is as a leader, Slately is far worse. Must run in the family, I hope Trem bucks the trend . . .

We didn't get much of a chance to see Oss as a leader, unless you are going back to you complaint about him acting human in the situation he is in.

Personally I've been screaming at Slately to GTFO for a long time now so I'm not saying you're wrong. Just that this was so far beyond his understanding and expectations that he may not even have been able to conceive of it.

That seems very reasonable. It is good to remember over the course of an hour or two the father and sons of Jetstone have really had their world shaken to a massive extent, they are in places and roles they never would have imagined themselves, and they are really having to take things as they come, with varying levels of success, which is understandable.