Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) – Episode 020

[balder]

New One is up.

[vintermann]

Whoa, I hadn't expected this level of success.

Observation: Magic in Erfworld seems to be Vancian. Wanda forgets the spell as it's cast.

[kagato23]

It looks like there's a typo? On the line "Quisling escaped Goodminton's airspace with more than half their total units still alive..." Seems like that should be Frenemy >

[sabreolli]

Maybe the most exiting episode yet. Kudos!

[Nebulious]

Knowing that eventually Wanda will be a member of distant FAQ and her near-fatalist view of fate, I get scared every time something like this goes so right. In my mind it's only setting up for a heavier shoe to drop. Damn you, Balder!

[Whispri]

Victory! And a level Five City to boot.

They'll need a new name for the Tower now. Salvation Tower?

[Berserkas]

So it was Dirtamancy after all? No fair.

Also: Finally, some pwnage! Though if they had any stored spells left, they really should have assaulted both of the armies, just to score more kills for Wanda to uncroak.

I'm also highly dissapointed. I mean, really. They have been charging the tower for... how long? Six, ten turns? Ever since Wanda ordered them to. And they wiped out a good chunk of their enemies, despite neither Delphie or Clay being direct combat casters. If Delphie and Clay had tended to the air defenses instead of i imagine HUNDREDS of turns letting their juice go to waste (at least Delphie's) because OMG THE SIDE IS DOOMED ANYWAYS, then perhaps the side wouldn't be so damned doomed.

[Sixty]

Spells on towers seem to do more damage depending on the size of the city instead of just letting you store more spells (though I wouldn't be surprised if that was true, is there a limit to how many spells can be cast on a tower?). Great update!

[Mrtyuh]

Well, the guesses I had for the scroll were all wrong. I thought it might be Weirdomancy, an attempt to remove the flight special from the enemy and have them fall. Another guess was Carnymancy, since it breaks the rules. My third guess was Shockamancy, since, as a branch of Naughtymancy, it might feel dirty, and it would be useful against air units. Dirtamancy never even entered my mind. My only question is: did they level the city to level 5 or simply upgrade the Minnow Tower to increase its bonuses?

Also, I think I saw a mistake:

Quisling escaped Goodminton's airspace with more than half their total units still alive; the battle was decisive mainly for the high-value targets they had lost.

Fritz stood atop the tall new tower, leaving his sword in its sheath. He signaled to Quisling by pointing to the horizon, with Delphie standing at his back, ready to cast. Before ten minutes had passed, they too had withdrawn from Goodminton's airspace.

I think that first Quisling should be Frenemy. Also, how could Quisling and Frenemy both move? At the start of the turn, Goodminton, Frenemy and Quisling were all allied, so they all shared turn. Goodminton broke alliance with Frenemy, but kept alliance with Quisling. We can assume that Quisling and Frenemy were still allied. So, Goodminton and Quisling share a turn; Frenemy and Quisling share a turn; Frenemy and Goodminton do not share a turn. Of course, this may be an exception since the alliance broke on turn, and the new turn order in the battlespace will assert itself next turn. Of course, I doubt Goodminton will remain allied with Quisling for long, so I doubt this complicated situation will remain.

A good plan. It only cost a fifth of the treasury instead of two thirds. Unfortunately, Goodminton is basically in the same position they were in when Wanda popped. They're down to two cities. I'm also pretty sure we haven't seen the end of Quisling and Frenemy. They're now fighting five sides. Even with razing Goodfinger, their treasury is still down. They've gained units, but many of those are uncroaked and will decay. Delphie has levelled to five and Wanda to four. They have a higher level Chief Warlord. They've lost two allies who were selling them out. While they're probably in a slightly worse situation, it isn't that much worse.

I also wonder what the other two sides in the battlespace have been doing.

[Pyrates]

So who can make sense out of

"Dobler," she incanted, "Tatum, Samuelsson, McSorley..." The tower rumbled. "Cobb!" Wanda shouted. "Rose!"

?

[multilis]

...I'm also pretty sure we haven't seen the end of Quisling and Frenemy. They're now fighting five sides...

Enemies that waited for the main army to return to the capital... that hints of a lack of trust between them that they couldn't diplomatically quickly make an agreement, and sack the capital while it was still easy.

Frenemy and Quisling trust each other even less now, Frenemy will now fear that Quisling had secret deal and backstabbed them. (Frenemy lost their warlords, Quisling lost nothing, so fear that Quisling is really plotting a surprise attack on Frenemy capital)

Divide and conquer is mentioned here: http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/TBFGK_38b

2 parts to that here, making the 5 enemies paranoid of others secretly working with you; and trying to only fight one army at a time so you always get crushing victories. (Napoleon's wars are good examples of attempting the latter...)

If they had attacked Quisling then Frenemy and Quisling would be less divided and they would have taken some losses, and less "fear"/reputation. Now no one knows what tower defenses or other surprises they may still have left. So easier to continue to play the game of getting each enemy to wait for other to attack first.

Wanda now has a small elite force of uncroaked, in the only side that is desperate enough to have chief warlord and high level caster in every big battle (which gives uncroaked a double bonus). Small elite army, all on mounts can be deadly using hit and run tactics. In the above Klog this tactic is best described as "melt away/insurgency".

[*mancer]

So who can make sense out of

"Dobler," she incanted, "Tatum, Samuelsson, McSorley..." The tower rumbled. "Cobb!" Wanda shouted. "Rose!"

?

They were all "dirty" athletes. Dobler and Tatum were dirty football players, Samuelsson and McSorley hockey and Cobb and Rose baseball.

[0beron]

Knowing that eventually Wanda will be a member of distant FAQ and her near-fatalist view of fate, I get scared every time something like this goes so right. In my mind it's only setting up for a heavier shoe to drop. Damn you, Balder!

Has anyone considered the possibility that Delphi is WRONG? (not trying to challenge you, it just occurred to me as a possibility)
Could she have misinterpreted? Could her flawed prediction in of itself be part of Wanda's fate?

Also another thought occurs...is it possible FAQ eventually captures/acquires both Wanda AND Olive, then given their known attitude toward peace, appoint Olive as the Chief?

In either event, Wanda's success right now and apparent "defeat" of Fate could in fact be part of Fate's plan.

[DJMandwich]

Awesome.

[ScegfOd]

Knowing that eventually Wanda will be a member of distant FAQ and her near-fatalist view of fate, I get scared every time something like this goes so right. In my mind it's only setting up for a heavier shoe to drop. Damn you, Balder!

darnit! ninja'd
i was going to post something to this effect xD
but now ill just put this:

ninja'd

QFT

[Kaed]

Whoa, I hadn't expected this level of success.

Observation: Magic in Erfworld seems to be Vancian. Wanda forgets the spell as it's cast.

No, scrolls are Vancian. Like any one-time use magic spell, you can't use it again, thus you have to forget it, or the magic words fade away, or something. It's just how that sort of thing works.

I wonder if the height of the tower changes the caster boost. Higher tower means stronger magic? Or did they do that just to force the fliers to take more time to reach them?

I'm really digging how many ways casters can be used in Erfworld. This Predictamancer/Luckamancer combo is devastating - previously I thought Predictamancers were only good for making prophecies, but it seems they are able to perform short-term precognition too. CRIT CRIT CRIT CRIT

Now we just need to hope Quisling doesn't turn before Wanda can uncroak that mass of units down there.

[gameboy1234]

Nice update, glad to see an image of Frantz and Clay. Kudos to those who guess Dirtmancy for the scroll, although I'm not sure anyone guess on an upgrade for the tower.

[gameboy1234]

This Predictamancer/Luckamancer combo is devastating - previously I thought Predictamancers were only good for making prophecies, but it seems they are able to perform short-term precognition too. CRIT CRIT CRIT CRIT

Just to be a little pendantic--Delphie's predictamancy is providing the hits, and Clay's luck is providing the damage effects, so I think it's actually Clay that's doing the crits (extra damage).

[MarbitChow]

Observation: Magic in Erfworld seems to be Vancian. Wanda forgets the spell as it's cast.

Nope. Scrolls allow her to channel power that is beyond her current means (which is why she can't remember the spell after she uses it), but casters normally use juice.
They can cast the same spell as many times as they want once they learn it - for example Maggie's "I've got enough juice for just one more thinkagram" from book 1.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic

[0beron]

Observation: Magic in Erfworld seems to be Vancian. Wanda forgets the spell as it's cast.

Nope. Scrolls allow her to channel power that is beyond her current means (which is why she can't remember the spell after she uses it), but casters normally use juice.
They can cast the same spell as many times as they want once they learn it - for example Maggie's "I've got enough juice for just one more thinkagram" from book 1.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VancianMagic

Scrolls are one time use only, and the caster does NOT expend juice when they use a scroll...