Summer Updates - 016

[Lunaya]

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

I would submit to you two words: Shar Pei.

[Arkenputtyknife]

Think about human babies, especially new-born. They're messy, stinky, noisy, ugly, require constant attention, and are an all-round pain in the butt.

If we weren't genetically programmed to perceive them as cute, nay adorable, the human race would have become extinct long ago.

[Goshen]

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

I would submit to you two words: Shar Pei.

Heh. A Shar Pei is a wrinkle with a dog inside it, and soo cute!

Bulldogs, Pugs, and Ed Asner are better examples, IMHO, of being so ugly it makes them adorable.

I like these low-impact summer updates. I can wait until the next book for the real action.

And Vinnie is so dreamy. Can't get enough of him.

[moose o death]

anyone know what the deal is with the black text vs the grey text?

[vdragan]

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.

Part of me wants to stick it out and try and argue that it's Caesar, Vinny &co that have entered the same battlespace as carpoolorwhatever (and are therefore engaged with them). Which I guess could still be the case. But I read over the update, and I think you're probably right. Someone somewhere else that's part of TV has engaged Carpoolorwhatever in some way, and it seems to be affecting Jillian's honour guard (unless the reason why Caesar is contacting their T-mancer is to be like "wtf m8, why are there doodz in mah battlespace?"). I got too excited. Ah well.. so much for my AB BC distinction.

If two sides being in the same battlespace affects ALL units of the two sides, that means BC units in the same battlespace would have to sit around and whistle dixie while A did their stuff. Maybe they could throw rocks at eachother. Or come up with obscene songs.

[moose o death]

yeah i've come to the same conclusion myself. i thought it was they who had enetered carpool's space but it does seem likely that TV is just in carpools space somewhere and these guys get to sit around taming flying rodents.

erfworld is certainly one boring place when it's not your turn....you appear to be able to do anything you want except move somewhere else.

[Spot]

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.

I get the same impression. In fact I suspect that Erfworld is just as large as Earth.

[Binty]

Guess the size of a Hex: 1 mile across.

[KiltedNinja]

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.

...I'm wondering if this could actually be something to pay attention to ; We all saw earlier how Charlie communicated with Parson through the Eyebooks - which was met with "omg hax", and "I thought these things were secure"... perhaps Charlie's Arkendish allows him to hack/tap communications in this manner and Don King is paranoid for a reason... (If this has been mentioned before - I apologise for the re-hashing.. I've not been around the forums as much as I'd like )

[moose o death]

it's not a bad point but charlie is kept mysterious deliberately within and without the story. we're not likely to get closure on him for a long time. we still don't know wanda's full list of new tricks as she was left behind during turn 1.

minimum is september sometime before we likely see GK again.

charlie wont be seen again until another profitable war shows up or he makes an attempt at buying parson from stanley.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

Some guessing on the size of erfworld: Jillian needed two turns to fly to the chokepoint, so it could be around 75 hexes away from GK. She also needs two turns with her gwiffons to the capital of TV. If a hex is 1 km in diameter, this means the capitals of TV and GK are around 175 km afar (+/-something). If I further deduct, that this distance is about the diameter of a larger power like TV, their kingdom' area has a size of about 20.000 km², which is about the size of Connecticut.

[moose o death]

does one hex equal one move though?
i kinda figured the hex would have more move points within it than that. but i guess it makes more sense if gobwin knobs trap occured across multiple hexes.

however also armed with that tiny bit of information, we could guess that one hex is more likely 500m or 1/4 mile (400m) purely based on jamie's art.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

It's very likely that one move equals one hex; units can unlimitedly walk around in a hex without any exhaustion, that only aplies to Parson (klog 11).

[HandofShadows]

anyone know what the deal is with the black text vs the grey text?

You can change the color of the font if you want to.

[Killer Angel]

Another interesting thing in this update: Jillian is really angry with Stanley.
It's understandable (she hated him even before the last events) but she should know that, when Ansom was croacked, Stanley was far away from GK. Why she don't ask herself who is the real hand behind the loss of her handsome prince?

[moose o death]

anyone know what the deal is with the black text vs the grey text?

You can change the color of the font if you want to.

look closer, my post will likley be black to me when i post it but will be grey after someone else replies. but some posts remain black permemently. i'd like to know what it all means.

[DevilDan]

Another interesting thing in this update: Jillian is really angry with Stanley.
It's understandable (she hated him even before the last events) but she should know that, when Ansom was croacked, Stanley was far away from GK. Why she don't ask herself who is the real hand behind the loss of her handsome prince?

The heir of Faq had a reason to take down Stanley well before Ansom's death.

[Welf von Ehrwald]

And it's not like she knew how to spend her time better than killing things. And for killing Stanley she even gets paid (although she should work on her negotiation skills).

[Welf von Ehrwald]

anyone know what the deal is with the black text vs the grey text?

You can change the color of the font if you want to.

look closer, my post will likley be black to me when i post it but will be grey after someone else replies. but some posts remain black permemently. i'd like to know what it all means.

That way a special post is marked so you don't have to search it on the screen. Click on any Caption, and the correspondent post will appear in black (in this tread it is "Re: Summer Updates - 016").

[valce]

How many units have to be in a zone before enemies are considered to be in their battle zone?

If putting a marbit or something in every hex counts, you might have a cheap way to guesstimate where enemy forces are (based on when your turn starts, since I assume your turn starts at the same time for all your units). If your turn starts/ends at a different time, then you can check likely hexes on your current/next turn and maybe get a jump start on your enemy's forces that way.