How Parson could win the game in 50 turns or less.

[Necromonkey]

doesn't give a fuck troll doesn't give a fuck

[WaterMonkey314]

I suppose the biggest problem is convincing Sizemore to actually do this - to commit a near-genocide of all of Erf. Also, I think it'd take a lot longer than 50 turns to go to every city.

[BLANDCorporatio]

"Sizemore, I order you to kill everyone." "Yes, Master." That problem- solved.

However, the plan itself relies on there existing actions that can be repeated indefinitely during a turn. Crapping may be such an action (and with wonky time in Erfworld, there's no need to actually end turn, one could spend years on the same turn building the Cralps).

Making Crap Golems however most likely [i]isn't[/b] such an action, in that it requires juice, which is used up by actions, and replenished by starting a new turn. Granted, Sizemore could make a whole lot of Crap Golems for the available juice in a turn (see that page way back in Book 1), but how many Golems do you think it takes to kill the world? Hundreds? Of thousands?

[Kreistor]

Going to post this in the simplest format I can think of. There will be plenty of room for discussion, because again we don't know all the "rules". So some assumptions will have to be made.

The primary weapon here is the most potentially overpowered yet most under used unit in all of erfworld....Sizemore!

Anything Sizemore can do, another Side or Alliance can do. One truth in War is that when you do something to an enemy, you show him how to do it. No one tactic that an enemy can reproduce can work forever.

Here is a list of things we know:
Yellow dwagons can generate a virtual unlimited supply of acid crap.

Problem: acid crap may not persist past the end of the Turn. The example is the pink bubblegum of the pink dwagons. It persists only to the end of a Turn, and then the Unit is free. It literally disappears.

Crap golems have the ability to explode.

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F126.jpg

Not on their own. Panel 10. Sizemore pulls the golem's finger, and then it explodes. In order to get this effect, Sizemore must be on the front line, and that makes him vulnerable to targeted fire, especially enemy casters.

Things we don't know, or don't know for sure:
If golems are considered heavies...I'm assuming they are, but if they aren't, then that adds a whole dimension to this plan.
If there is a time limit on how long a golem can "exist", do they rot, dry up, fall apart? Let’s assume that they are around until they are killed or explode.

So let’s start this shindig......spend 10 turns having the yellows doing nothing but crap in an open area. Have Sizemore link with Maggie, giving him the potential to make better golems than he could by himself, and the possibility of making multiple golems at a time. Even better a crap golem that has the ability to fly.

Making earth airborne probably requires a Wierdomancer, who we know can add and subtract specials, like Flight.

After these 10 turns are over you have this massive massive force of acid crap golems.

No more massive than Jetstone linking the Hat-a-mancer and Dollamancer to create massive number of Battle Bears. We now know Charlie can Link with Casters, so all it would take is money to rent his services, since they already have the other two casters necessary.

Now best case scenario Yellow dwagons can carry and drop the acid golems in strategic places, but let’s assume they can’t since they may be considered heavy units. So anyway you have this massive army of crap golems march from city to city. Reds, Blues, Browns and Pinks provide close air support.

1. Yellows get curbstomed by Air Defenses from Towers. Crap golems fall, and many die on impact with ground. Once yellows and crap golems are dead, Side can rebuild city as soon as no enemies are in the City perimeter.

Crap golems are primary attacking ground unit, Yellows primary attacking flyers. If city isn’t well defended, send in crap golems to melt though walls and buildings, then explode to do massive damage to surrounding enemy units and buildings.

Unnecessary on small cities. Dwagons were already overwhelming defenders.

Sizemore spends his daily juice on rebuilding any golems that are destroyed, again linked with Maggie.

As has already been pointed out, Sizemore needs to be with his golems to explode them. For this to work, Sizemore and Maggie must link and break regularly. Once a link is borken, normal juice limits apply (see Vanna's comments), and so it will elave both Maggie and Sizemore useless, ending Maggie's capacity to communicate to the troops.

Now for bigger cities like fortresses or capitals, Sizemore linked with Maggie would give him the ability to manipulate terrain on a grand scale. Earthquakes, landslides, simply removing the earth beneath the cities themselves, because as shown in the strip where he digs the tunnel in the magic kingdom, dirt doesn’t move, it just disappears. So it’s probable to theorize that, while linked up, Sizemore could remove the dirt from under entire cities. Walls, towers, buildings would crumble.

Vanna has demonstrated that this is a gross overestimate of the capacity of a two-person link. A single massive spell drained enough juice for days. While Sizemore may be able to do one or two major events, they will not be constant. Further, this puts Maggie and Sizemore both in vulnerable positions, and given the distracting nature of the link, unable to defend themselves in any way.

Once the initial damage is done…

It immediately gets undone. A City can be rebuilt instantly so long as it is not occupied by any enemy units.

all out attack with crap golems and yellows. If Sizemore has juice left over…he can make more golems out of the crap that yellows are dropping in the cities, or make dirt ones from the city rumble. That paired with Wanda decrypting anything that can be animated and pushing the attack. No city anywhere would stand a chance. No army could stop them, they have a hard enough time with the dwagons and decrypted, let alone throw in a legions of acid crap golems.

First, we do not know the combat capacity of a crap golem. We do not see them used on the front lines, except in regions of surprise. They may be extremely poor fighters when not in restricted terrain. As the weakest form of golem, we are not certain they are powerhouses. Remember that the golems in the tunnels were backed up by Sizemore's own Juice, and even the Rock Golems were destroyed by standard light infantry. Golems are not invulnerable, and I'll repeat that crap golems are the weakest of the type, acid or not.

The only thing that could slow them down would be the distance between cities, but it only took Ansom and Wanda 15 turns before it was standing in front of Jetstone.

Golems are not shown being used outside of the City's defense. they may be assigned to Garrison duty because they are extremely slow.

But all in all, I think they could simply take out every city with Sizemore’s abilities alone. Wanda’s decrypted and additional dwagons would just be icing on the cake.

And how long until Sizemore faces an enemy with the capacity to get to him? Casters are big targets. Sure, they can win you battles. Even a Healamancer essentially summons armies by turning the nearly dead that wouldn't survive back into fully formed units, essentially going from ineffective to fully effective.

Soooooo….discuss!

So, I'll list them all for simplicity:

1) Crap golems require Sizemore's presence to explode.
2) Crap golems are the weakest form, and even the strongest can be killed by light infantry, making them nowhere near the powerhouse you claim.
3) Acid Crap may disappear at Turn end, like other dwagon breath.
4) Crap Golems may have extremely slow move, making them vulnerable in transit to sneak attacks by fast movers.
5) Casters are big targets on the front line.
6) The enemy can reproduce his tactics, because they are reproducible

and...

In warfare, to be predictable is to be vulnerable. Book 2 is all about the counter to Wanda's predictable tactics.

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

The primary weapon here is the most potentially overpowered yet most under used unit in all of erfworld....Sizemore!

I do not think we know the relative power of crap golems to cloth golems. We also do not know about duration, upkeep (juice or schmuck), cost of creation (juice), or the rate they can be created. So we do not know how a dollamancer vs dirtamancer duel would play out. Sizemore's masterclass status might give an edge over Ace's newb status. That makes Sizemore's presence on a battlefield an even greater risk.

Making earth airborne probably requires a Wierdomancer, who we know can add and subtract specials, like Flight.

A dirtamancer-thinkamancer- weirdomancer triple link would allow for a lot of strange crap.

[Kreistor]

Sizemore's masterclass status might give an edge over Ace's newb status. That makes Sizemore's presence on a battlefield an even greater risk.

Sizemore is still only an adept. He is having problems breaking through a mental block to achieve Master.

[Necromonkey]

doesn't give a fuck troll doesn't give a fuck

[Kreistor]

1) Crap golems require Sizemore's presence to explode.

1. Good point, but required might be a strong word to use, yes we've seen evidence of him pulling the finger, but doesn't rule out the option of there being a "remote detonation" ability. I'm sure Parson would be able to figure it out, but we can’t clearly say it just doesn’t exist at all.

If he could have, he would have the one time he is shown doing it. He also had a half dozen or so more crap golems to do it to, and he failed to. Consequently, that it could is contraindicated by the events of Book 1.

2) Crap golems are the weakest form, and even the strongest can be killed by light infantry, making them nowhere near the powerhouse you claim.

2. I never really claimed them to be powerhouses, but I couldn't find any real reference that says they are the weakest form. Also we aren't talking about basic crap golems, we're talking about acid crap golems.

Which means nothing. You're making a ton of assumptions, including that acid crap can even be made into a golem. The acid may make it a nonviable target because it eats away at the crap itself. Far too many unknowns to base an entire world-ending scenario on.

3) Acid Crap may disappear at Turn end, like other dwagon breath.

3. While I agree the crap probably disappears at the end of turn, the damage done wouldn't be, unless the money was spent to repair the damage to the city. Also since any crap used to make a golem is now a unit, and not considered dwagon breathe, it might not follow the same rules, assuming of course Sizemore can convert it all to golems before start of next turn.

More "mights". The opposite might be true, too. Since they aren't doing it, your assumptions are probably not true.

4) Crap Golems may have extremely slow move, making them vulnerable in transit to sneak attacks by fast movers.

4. Since we don't know the move score of golems then yes, they could be slower, but on the other hand since they are probably the lightest form of golem, maybe they more move than some other type golems. Another point that you have forgotten is that decrypted and all the dwagon air support that would be escorting them.

Supporting them instead of using their higher move to actually deal damage, scout, harry the enemy, or perform other offensive missions? that's throwing good units after bad.

5) Casters are big targets on the front line.

5. True but at this point in the books, no caster that has been on the front line has come into serious enough jeopardy to warrant not even attempting any plan they’ve come up with. With Jack there for his veils and stuff, I’m willing to bet that they’d be safe enough to perform their link without much trouble. As for Charlie, no reason Parson can’t keep “dealing” with him the way he has, or even hire him straight out.
Even after the Kingsworld spell, Vanna had enough juice to attempt a turn on Ansom.

Wanda has been on the front line and in danger, and had Artemis been at tBoGK, Wanda would have been shot in the head. The Dittomancer at the bridge could have been offed easily by the dwagons, had he been the primary target instead of Ossomer. Sizemore hhimself would have been killed in the tunnels, had he not had enough juice to fix his golem.

Okay, now you're taking away Wanda's defense to protect Sizemore, AND Stanley's capacity to monitor the battle? Not even close to reasonable. Wanda is far more important than your acid crap golems.

6) The enemy can reproduce his tactics, because they are reproducible

6. I can’t help but think that Sizemore could create crap golems at a much much faster rate than dollamancers can create their dolls. Simply for the fact he can acquire the resources needed to make them much easier than the dollamancers.

Assuming acid crap doesn't disappear, can be used to make golems, doesn't eat away the golems themselves, etc, etc, etc...

That is a LOT of assumptions.

Sidenotes: You also mentioned Yellows getting tore up by tower defense, ok I agree but you still got the reds, blues, purps, everything else as support fire, the tower defense only has so much juice, and I can promise you this much, not every tower in all the cities are going to pack the same punch as Jetstone’s.

Carpool's does. Remember how they "spelled [Carport's] Tower up hard"? Wanda has revealed that many casters can cast spells on towers, now, so it doesn't even take a Shockmancer. So, if you're relying on dwagons to take the tower, why are you using the crap golems at all? Now the dwagons are taking the cities without the golems.

Also as shown in the off turn attack on Jetstone, the mere touch of acid crap dissolves pretty much anything, stone, glass, metal armor. So any weapon used against the first wave, would be gone on the 2nd wave. Leaving infantry fighting hand to hand with acid crap golems. On top of that, since we know acid crap melts pretty much anything, a cloth golem really doesn’t stand much of a chance.

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/?px=%2F2011-01-17.jpg

Actually, I see a lot of "acid" crap not eating holes through the floor here. In fact, it looks like the acid has completely worn out. That's what Acid does... as it eats into something, it gets used up. One huge assumption you're making is that the acid is magical and eternal, and nothing like Earthly acid. If it is like our acid and denatures (as the above image suggests), then with every step, the acid crap golem becomes closer to a crap golem, until the acid is all worn out.

He has demonstrated his ability to “earthmeld” so to speak, and his rock golems can too.

[/quote]

Citation, please.

[Necromonkey]

doesn't give a fuck troll doesn't give a fuck

[drachefly]

Not really fair to say if he could have he would have, and call it quits.

Umm, unless there's some reason you're thinking of... that 4chan explosion was very effective. If he could have blown them all to similar effect, he would have. He didn't, so...

Seriously. This is not as awesome as it seems to you. Just cut your losses.

[MarbitChow]

Regarding Sizemore being 'required' to be there to trigger the golem: note that prior to the detonation, tunnelling was required to reach the leaders (bypassing their protective units), and a shockamancy scroll was used to stun them.

A tunneller was required to get the golems into position, and a caster was required to read the shockamancy scroll, so Sizemore was the only caster available who fit the bill.
It might be possible that whoever 'pulls the finger' to trigger the explosion gets the XP, and since Sizemore was there, it would make sense to have him do so.
If the act of pulling the finger leaves the unit in a precarious position, however, it would make more sense to ignore the hypothetical XP gain rather than risking the caster in the future.

A single instance of an action does not constitute proof that it would have been done another way if it could have been.

[drachefly]

That was not particularly the best point to attack, but it was first and it's utterly required.

Juice-limited golemcrafting seems very very likely, in which case this falls to pieces. The offense is slow enough that counteroffense is quite possible.

Even if dirtamancers are as OP as described, Sizemore isn't even the highest-level dirtamancer out there! What happens when they come knocking with their bigger fleets of cwap golems? You can't keep up until you've cornered and converted them. But all they need to do is allow themselves to be hired, move into a city, craft, retreat through the MK...

The world can't be that broken.

[Necromonkey]

doesn't give a fuck troll doesn't give a fuck

[Kreistor]

That's not Earthmelding. Earthmelding allows you to walk through stone, soil, mud, clay, etc, without leaving a tunnel. You can breathe while buried. All the first example shows is Sizemore tunneling, and the second is a page of text with no indicator of what you want me to read. I skimmed it and couldn't figure out why you linked it.

Anyway, I think enough people have demonstrated a disagreement that I don't need to reply further. Most respondants find the strategy fundamentally flawed, so I'll leave it at that.

[Necromonkey]

doesn't give a fuck troll doesn't give a fuck

[BLANDCorporatio]

Ahem. Though sometimes I wish it were otherwise, it is patently not true that nobody cares about what Kreistor has to say, as a cursory look through this part of the forum alone will reveal, and as far as I can tell he was being civil so far, no need to get upset.

The thing is that we don't know whether this plan of yours can take off at all, because it needs Crap Golems to be mass-producible on a scale we haven't seen ever so far. If anything, Kreistor has been more patient than most, myself included, to look into the plan beyond this basic problem. I just called quits on it the moment I said Sizemore will never be able to produce enough Golems to conquer Erfworld in a reasonably short amount of time. Only Kreistor went ahead and analyzed what would happen should GK commit to this plan.

And as plans go, you must admit, it's pretty crappy. *ba-dum-tish*

*crickets*

Thank y'all, I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your waiter or waitress!

[Necromonkey]

edited to fit my level of caring for any of this. I'm not one for spinning my wheels in the mud, so I refuse to continue to debate endlessly on shit that doesn't even matter, nor fundamentals that can't ever be proven or disproven. Could spend eternity preaching back and forth on how a plan would or wouldn't work, and it'd never end because we'd never get to see it in action. So whatever troll is whatever.

[BLANDCorporatio]

So yeah ...

... anyone else interested in salvaging this thread and try to cook up ways for Parson to win the game in 50 turns or less?

[Lamech]

So yeah ...

... anyone else interested in salvaging this thread and try to cook up ways for Parson to win the game in 50 turns or less?

Exponential dwagon growth! They presumably have more mountains than just reachable. Use dwagons in relay to extend the archon range. Each dwagon gets you about 50 hexes. Or about 1/4th dwagon a turn. That is 125% interest. In three turns we can double the dwagons we gots. In say... 30 turns he could be taming 1000 dwagons a turn, if we start at a taming rate of 2 dwagons a turn.Then we start sending guys out to battle, some will be harvested by Parson. Parson will gain a lot of levels (with that killing a 1000 dwagons a turn). The dwagon doom squads will probably take more than 20 turns to sweep the world, but it should be a pretty quick win.


P.S. This assumes unlimited mountain ranges, and discounts Stanley's dwagons. Since an area of 50 hexes is only a handful across I figured we could discount that. If we assume a limited number of mountain ranges we can't do this so I ignored that. Jillian planned on mounting Vinny... on her gwiffions so fliers can ride.

[Sieggy]

Something simpler, that I've mentioned before - gunpowder. Assuming that chemistry in Erf is the same as Stupidworld, of course. Sizemore, being a Dirtamancer, would be uniquely qualified to produce / extract saltpeter from the cesspit (or yellow Dwagon cwap), there should be an abundance of sulphur around the lava lake, and making charcoal is a trivial exercise. Twolls should be able to fab whatever is needed as far as hardware is concerned, from grenades to petards to gonnes to bombards to interhexical ballistic missiles.

What made firearms so popular when introduced was that with minimal training, Joachim T. Serf could be converted into a lethal killer with quite a reach (vide "The Man Who Would Be King") at a relatively low cost. It remains to be seen whether gunners would be more effective than archers under Erf rules, mind you, but gunpowder could easily give Parson a damn near unbeatable edge. Especially given his familiarity with it and the element of surprise.