Summer Updates - 016

[balder]

New one is up. Technically not 3 turns since TBfGK but I'm sure this one contains more squabble-worthy points than that.

[moose o death]

we don't even need squabbling worth points to do that.

can tame wild units

erfworld HAS wild and tameable units

the rest we isn't even known to the conversation less wiki updateable.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

I wonder if there are some dwagons out there Stanley could tame.
What's a neutral turn? And what exactly means battlespace? Still a unexplained mystery.
Ceasar had contact with bunny, so it seems thinkamancer can contact units outside of their turn.

More speculative: Will there be an alliance between Carpool and Gobwin Knob? Think about it: carpool takes back a city, and when TV shows up to retake it, a army of dwagons and angels unveils.

[moose o death]

battlepsace is x number of hexes from xyz side. eg the entirety of book one the RCC forces were sitting in Gobwin Knob battlespace. initially gobwin knob had the first turn because it was their territory, but somehow charlescomm ended up with the initial turn.

it seems likely stanley tamed a dwagon and tame dwagons were added to his build lists once he became overlord.

we already new units could contact thinkamancers outside of their turn. about the only thing you can't do is move it would seem. and by move i mean a long walk. it seems you can wander about locally as far as you like. as long as it doesn't constitute a move point it's perfectly acceptable.

no the newish things i saw
jillian maintaining her weapons, might also reduce upkeep costs of constantly healing weapons damaged at the start of a turn.
vinny taming a wild bat. i guess we all thought tamed was relevant ...so now we know.
none of the group knows what's going on right now. well maybe ceaser does but he's not telling anyone about it.
the number of cities in erfworld is probably substantial, they haven't moved far and are in another sides battlespace. THEIR battlespace is suppsedly 1 more turn away

[Benementat]

Based on how the first paragraph of the update reads, it sounds like the entire TV side is affected by their side entering Battlespace with anyone, not just a side near where the stack is. This also brings up a new mechanic: "Natural Turn", which has some sort of underlying effect that only comes into play when Battlespace is joined. Now, the question is, how is natural turn order established, how can it be modified(other than alliances, which we've already seen), and does it ever change after a side starts?



"Questions, questions; too many questions! you want a shard? here! (dumps crystals)"
-----"but which one is it?"
"Don't know."
--The Dark Crystal

[doran]

battlepsace is x number of hexes from xyz side. eg the entirety of book one the RCC forces were sitting in Gobwin Knob battlespace. initially gobwin knob had the first turn because it was their territory, but somehow charlescomm ended up with the initial turn.

How do you know this for sure?
I can't remember it being mentioned anywhere.
Battlespace could also occur on the turn after a turn with combat between two sides.

[moose o death]

which aspect. whos turn was what was mentioned excessively.

initially gobwin knob had the first turn of a day, as parson got his breakfast.

later. there was the freakout when bogroll made parson breakfast because their turn hadn't started yet. that prompted everyone to realise someone else had entered their battlespace.

by the battle the turn order seemed to be charlescomm-gobwinn knob-RCC

the garrisoned troops appear to be able to do whatever the hell they want during anyone's turn so it got kinda messy in the actual battle. your movement limits off-turn appear to be directly attached to move and garrisoned troops can move freely through the city. thinkamancer's seem to be able to command troops remotely, and troops seem to be responsive to orders off-turn just not moving it would appear. unled stacks probably just stand around waiting to die without a leader on the off-turns.

so long story short, battlespace seems to be a range surrounding your city and is probably larger for higher levelled city's it does mention space in the title. the inhabitants of erfworld seem to not like sneak attacks as a tactic. both stanley and ansom frowned on parson's method of execution for ansom.

[badninja]

Wow, I think that Vinny is right about something, but I think that they are all in for one rude wake up call about that! I feel that Don King is right and Caesar is not to be trusted with the information that is going to get past on. Caesar is already with holding information from his own group and that is never good. (He could tell them privately out of ear shot) I think that things are about to go down hill from here for this group.

[MarbitChow]

Wow, I think that Vinny is right about something, but I think that they are all in for one rude wake up call about that! I feel that Don King is right and Caesar is not to be trusted with the information that is going to get past on. Caesar is already with holding information from his own group and that is never good. (He could tell them privately out of ear shot) I think that things are about to go down hill from here for this group.

I totally got a different read on that. I think Don King suspects that someone (Charlie) can tap thinkamancy 'calls'. If TV is modeled after the Mob, it would make sense that they'd be paranoid about that sort of thing.

Therefore, I think that they would only convey critical information face-to-face.

[vdragan]

so long story short, battlespace seems to be a range surrounding your city and is probably larger for higher levelled city's it does mention space in the title. the inhabitants of erfworld seem to not like sneak attacks as a tactic. both stanley and ansom frowned on parson's method of execution for ansom.

why does battlespace have to be city-dependent? why can't it depend on units i.e.: a led stack's battlespace (not sure about led vs unled distinction on this one) is a certain number of hexes away from that stack.

that would involve different stacks moving in a different order, but we're not really given any indication that this can't happen. i mean, the thing about book 1 is that most of the units were concentrated. you had the giant rcc, and gobwin knob. but if what you actually have is a sprawling side with lots of units in the field, wouldn't it make sense for some of those units to have turns earlier in the day than others? otherwise the whole 'natural turn order' falls apart as a mechanic.

[teratorn]

The feral bat in Vinny's hands cracks me up...

[John Campbell]

We have every indication that turns happen on a side or alliance level, not per individual unit. What I take from this update is that sides have a natural order of turns... if every side had units in one battlespace (however that's figured), their turns would naturally happen in a set order. Carpool apparently has an earlier natural turn order than Transylvito; Transylvito (and therefore Carpool) and Charlescomm and barbarians come before Gobwin Knob; Gobwin Knob comes before the RCC (which I suspect really means "before Jetstone").

Allying forces changes their turn order from the natural, proven by the turn-timing games the RCC was playing with Jillian's mission. I suspect that an alliance has a defined lead side, and all units in the alliance move on the lead side's natural turn. In the RCC's case, that'd be Jetstone.

It can't be the earliest natural turn in the alliance, or the RCC would've been moving before Gobwin Knob, in Transylvito's natural turn order if not earlier. It can't be "alliances go last", or the Jillian/TV detachment would've been moving after Gobwin Knob, not before. It could be that alliances go on the latest natural turn of any of their members... TV's turn is before Gobwin Knob's, and Wanda implied that the barbarians' turn (i.e. Jillian's) is too.

I suspect that unallied barbarians go first as a special case, and I'm going to make a wild guess that the Tardy Elves have the last natural turn of any side in the world.

[vdragan]

We have every indication that turns happen on a side or alliance level, not per individual unit.

Ok, I think some clarification is in order as to what I meant.
Up until this point in the comic, we have only had situations where whole sides or alliances are concentrated. Imagine this scenario:
We have sides A, B, and C (listed in order of natural turn, and non-allied). Now, for groupings of 2 sides taken individually, side based turn order makes a lot of sense. Even if you have all three sides in the same space (like GK, RCC, and Charlescomm), it holds together. But if you have B, with unit stacks in two different areas (i.e, launching an attack on both A and C), and therefore in both A and C's battlespace independently, then it would make zero sense for B to not move their units in C's battlespace at dawn, just because they ALSO happen to be in A's battlespace on the other side of Erfworld. Yes? Does that make any sense? I wish I had diagrams.

Like so:
Initial situation Battlespace 1: AB <laaaaaaarge dividing space> Battlespace 2: BC
*dawn*
In unit based turn order, B cannot move in Battlespace 1, but can move in battlespace 2
In side based turn order... um... what happens? when does B move?

To be fair, this does assume that dawn happens everywhere at the same time, and that there isn't some form of check that prevents this from happening.

Also, I just realized I'm making a silly distinction. Turn order is still side- based. It's just that it's relative rather than absolute. Like physics.
I'm arguing against city-based battlespace.

Also, notice how it says that "Transylvito had entered battlespace WITH Carpool". Not "Carpool's battlespace"

and I'm going to make a wild guess that the Tardy Elves have the last natural turn of any side in the world.

[Lunaya]

Aww..Vinny has a new baby. ^^

[name lips]

It seems to me that factions start taking turns "in order" when they get close enough that they could possibly reach/fight each other during their turn. That's just my guess, really.

It also seems to me that Erfword is fairly large... a lot of the computer games I've played with cities and units and whatnot are fairly small in comparison. Like, in Age of Wonders, it would be rare that you could move 30 hexes without having passed a couple cities, seen many armies, and crossed most of the map. But in Erfworld they seem to think it's perfectly normal to spend entire turns without even entering battlespace with another faction, and that a military excursion taking a stack several turns away at maximum flying speed (how many hexes away was the Stanley ambush from the Transylvito capital?) isn't that odd...

It also seems plausable, if rare, that there could be cities that are undiscovered. There are stretches of "wilderness" that are vast enough that, once scouted, your units simply never bother to visit again. Thus the entire kingdom of Faq, scouted by Transylvito units way back when Jack was veiling the cities. But after all those turns with Faq destroyed, with Jack nowhere nearby, no units had ever scouted those hexes again and noticed the ruins.

This gives an impression to me, perhaps false, that Erfworld is a big place. There are huge stretches of "empty" hexes between cities, and huger stretches between factions. There are nowhere near enough units present to keep the maps up-to-date. Your first indication that a major attack might be coming is a strange turn order as the battlespaces coincide, but beyond that it's still a bit of work to scout around and actually figure out what's happening.

It's not just a "map" designed for a skirmish or scenario - it's a genuine, huge, world on the sort of scope that simply would never be envisioned for a computer game because nobody would ever feel like playing a game that lasted thousands upon thousands of turns.

Like I said, I might be wrong... but this is the impression I get, the feel I'm feeling for Erfworld.

[Kreistor]

Squabble? Well, yeah. Already had to nuke one bit of "jumping to conclusions".

I've started a thread for what to do on the wiki. I'd rather we argue it out here than there.

[John Campbell]

Note that the TV stack Jillian is with is having to wait for Carpool (or whoever) to finish their turn before they can move, even though they are not themselves engaged with Carpoolorwhoever.

It's apparent from this that B units that are not engaged with A still have to wait for A to end turn before they get their turn. It's possible, I suppose, that adding a second (BC) theatre of operations could change that, but I don't see any reason to assume that.

That being the case, I don't think talking about separate AB and BC battlespaces is anything more than a semantic distinction... from a practical perspective, C has to wait for B, and B has to wait for A, so it's all one big ABC battlespace, even if the A and C units are days and days of move away from each other and never the twain shall meet.

[BarGamer]

Aww..Vinny has a new baby. ^^

How can something so ugly be so cute? It doesn't make any sense!

[DevilDan]

Tons of little dogs are ugly as sin...

But that bat is just too boopin' cute.

[Cmdr I. Heartly Noah]

It reminds me of that bat from Anastasia.