Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) – Episode 028

[balder]

New One is up.

[Whispri]

Well it seems Haffaton have reached the limit of their advance, on this front at least.

I take it Wanda's levelled like a crazy person?

[Azukar]

So... Wanda and Olive on the same side.

How did this happen?

[kevistrophic]

I think we'll find out pretty soon how that happened.

It's interesting that we've seen a glimpse of the upper limit for the economically sustainable size of a side. Of course, the fact that there is one speaks to the "design goals" that govern the creation of Erfworld. Apparently no side is meant to ever conquer the whole world without flat out breaking the game if 40 or 50 cities is an "absurd" size that begs to be split up. What that means to me is that either victory conditions are more complicated than total conquest and subjugation like in Risk, or Erfworld has no victory conditions; it's not really a game at all.

[querzis]

So... Wanda and Olive on the same side.

How did this happen?

After her side was destroyed Wanda was captured easely by Haffaton, theres really no surprise there.

But now with this update that show us how big Haffaton is, its seems obvious that they cant still exist. A side that big would be a major concern in the main story. I cant wait to see how they fall and I'm quite sure Wanda had something to do with it.

[Whispri]

Wait, how is Jillian Level 7 now, but only Level 9 in the Future Era? Ansom shot up to Ten in less than five hundred Turns...

So... Wanda and Olive on the same side.

How did this happen?

Well Wanda may have been cornered by overwhelming force and surrendered in compliance with her Father's order to live and avenge. Olive may have slunk up to Wanda and persuaded her to give forgiveness a try. If Haffaton were not responsbile for the destruction of Goodminton, then signing up to conquer the World might actually be Wanda' best shot at fulfilling her Oath of Vengeance. Also, even taking the whole 'kin slaying' thing into consideration, after Goodminton fell Olive was the only person left alive Wanda cared about and she was spending a lot of time thinking about her at the end there.

'Course, being on the same Side, isn't the same thing as being on speaking terms. Oh how sad I am that so much of the story was skipped over.

After her side was destroyed Wanda was captured easely by Haffaton, theres really no surprise there.

But now with this update that show us how big Haffaton is, its seems obvious that they cant still exist. A side that big would be a major concern in the main story. I cant wait to see how they fall and I'm quite sure Wanda had something to do with it.

If Clay cursed her as ordered, likely so, but... if he boosted her instead as some suspect, then with her bonus, Tommy's bonus, a powerful stack of Uncroaked and full juice? 'Easy' isn't the word I'd look for.

They may still exist in a much reduced state, obviously Gobwin Knob and Jitterati have to spawn in territory currently belonging to Haffaton, but that doesn't mean they have to lose all their Cities.

[ftl]

Well played by Jillian! The "can neither confirm nor deny" line was perfect for the occasion. Convince the enemy you're a mercenary of Charlie's.

Doesn't exactly put them in a safe position, since Haffaton may well think nothing of croaking charlie's mercenaries, but at least they no longer have any suspicion about what Side she's from, because it doesn't matter since she's working for Charlie. And now she has her excuse for not talking, because they would find it completely plausible that Charlie forged some sort of NDA.

Of course, this is strike one. If she ever gets caught by Haffaton again, they won't buy the same line.

[ftl]

If Clay cursed her as ordered, likely so, but... if he boosted her instead as some suspect, then with her bonus, Tommy's bonus, a powerful stack of Uncroaked and full juice? 'Easy' isn't the word I'd look for.

Remember, Haffaton wins by not fighting. There's just one stack, eight units. The units decay. Wanda has to pay her own upkeep. She might survive a few turns on her own, but even if Haffaton doesn't strike her immediately, her choices are die fighting, get captured, or disband due to lack of upkeep. (Because Haffaton can happily use their overwhelming force to play scorched-earth and make sure there's nothing worth farming or hunting in the neighborhood...)

No, it IS easy. I bet Olive would even find a way to make it happen with no units croaked on either side.

[vintermann]

I'm beginning to think Haffaton was version 1.0 of the Hippiemancer conspiracy of world peace through world domination. They knew Wanda was fated for something great, so they used her the only way they could think of, using croakamancy to reduce upkeep costs and keep a large side sustainable.

It obviously won't work. I think decapitation - Wanda croaking the ruler and heirs, perhaps secretly on behalf of Faq - is how the Haffaton empire will fall.

Geographically, we now have reason to believe Jitterati and Gobwin Knob don't exist yet, or at least not in their present-turn locations. But Transylvito does.

[vintermann]

No, it IS easy. I bet Olive would even find a way to make it happen with no units croaked on either side.

Agreed. All it would take is one turnamancy scroll read by Olive. Wanda's attraction to Olive + fate would be enough to guarantee it would work.

[oslecamo2_temp]

Sides can split, but we already knew that from Ossomer.

More interestingly, sides can be subjugated, with the previous leader becoming simply another unit. Wanda got to be queen for a day.

Also gotta to love that in Erfworld you can just threw the excuse of "Charlie did it" and people won't ask questions about it.

I think we'll find out pretty soon how that happened.

It's interesting that we've seen a glimpse of the upper limit for the economically sustainable size of a side. Of course, the fact that there is one speaks to the "design goals" that govern the creation of Erfworld. Apparently no side is meant to ever conquer the whole world without flat out breaking the game if 40 or 50 cities is an "absurd" size that begs to be split up. What that means to me is that either victory conditions are more complicated than total conquest and subjugation like in Risk, or Erfworld has no victory conditions; it's not really a game at all.

Ah, but there's the thing! Whitout that kind of diminishing returns, conquering Erfworld would be too easy. At one point a side would have so many cities they would just steamroll over everything else, geting ever more strong as they acquired more territory.

But since at one point just capturing cities won't work anymore, leaders have to get creative. Magic, diplomacy, superior tactics to win with minimal losses. The more powerful you are, the bigger the challenge to gain even more power. To "win", a side would need a mighty combination of excellent warlords and uber magic.

Speaking of which, that may be the purpose of the arkentools. They allow to outright break the rules with stuff like upkeepless troops and/or free magic like Charlie's virtually infinite communication ability (just limited because even he can just focus on so many things at a time). The best bet to conquer the world is geting as much arkentools as you can and abuse the hell out of them.

[onlyme]

More interestingly, sides can be subjugated, with the previous leader becoming simply another unit. Wanda got to be queen for a day.

She was only ruler for a few seconds (and I think we are quite sure it was not queen as not being royal).
When everything but her stack vanished, she was no longer overlord, so there no longer was any side.
So no side was subjungated here.

[Zeku]

My theory is that uncroaked are not subject to the magic that prevents anyone from fighting each other. Ie, a few skeleton archers show up, someone uses hippymancy on the hex, and the archers just godmode all over everyone. For this exploit to work it would have to be kept secret, otherwise it could be overcome with a straightforward strategy, and probably countermagic as well.

I still don't know what causes particular sides to go first.

[oslecamo2_temp]

More interestingly, sides can be subjugated, with the previous leader becoming simply another unit. Wanda got to be queen for a day.

She was only ruler for a few seconds (and I think we are quite sure it was not queen as not being royal).
When everything but her stack vanished, she was no longer overlord, so there no longer was any side.
So no side was subjungated here.

Go read the rest of the webcomic. You may notice how Jillian was a side of her own for quite some time, she just didn't control any territorry. Wanda may've had just a stack, but she was still the ruler of that stack, just like Jillian was the queen of her flying mercenary warband.

[DyolfKnip]

"Come!" said Chris again, with a friendly beckon. "We have good chocolate, and tea. You look like a tea drinker. And we have...other things as well."

With High elves? Whatever could that be, I wonder?

Yeah, I've pointed out before that 4X games like Civilization have these sorts of empire-limiters built in as well. They don't usually go away, either. The only way to work around them is to use technology to boost your cities' production and revenue to stratospheric levels so that the penalties just don't matter. Which is exactly one of the things Parson is toying with.

[gobe]

More interestingly, sides can be subjugated, with the previous leader becoming simply another unit. Wanda got to be queen for a day.

She was only ruler for a few seconds (and I think we are quite sure it was not queen as not being royal).
When everything but her stack vanished, she was no longer overlord, so there no longer was any side.
So no side was subjungated here.

Go read the rest of the webcomic. You may notice how Jillian was a side of her own for quite some time, she just didn't control any territorry. Wanda may've had just a stack, but she was still the ruler of that stack, just like Jillian was the queen of her flying mercenary warband.

Go read the webcomic!? You should probably change your tone, especially when you're wrong.

Jillian was a barbarian commander and royal heir to a lost side -- a side that existed no more. She only became queen when she had a Side again. A side requires a capital city (or maybe just a city, I don't know), otherwise you are a barbarian commander, which is different from being ruler (you have no territory to rule). Wanda stopped being an overlord the moment the city fell, which is a few seconds later, as pointed out by the person you just senselessly insulted.

[Knight13]

She was only ruler for a few seconds (and I think we are quite sure it was not queen as not being royal).
When everything but her stack vanished, she was no longer overlord, so there no longer was any side.
So no side was subjungated here.

Go read the rest of the webcomic. You may notice how Jillian was a side of her own for quite some time, she just didn't control any territorry. Wanda may've had just a stack, but she was still the ruler of that stack, just like Jillian was the queen of her flying mercenary warband.

Go read the webcomic!? You should probably change your tone, especially when you're wrong.

Jillian was a barbarian commander and royal heir to a lost side -- a side that existed no more. She only became queen when she had a Side again. A side requires a capital city (or maybe just a city, I don't know), otherwise you are a barbarian commander, which is different from being ruler (you have no territory to rule). Wanda stopped being an overlord the moment the city fell, which is a few seconds later, as pointed out by the person you just senselessly insulted.

Precisely. Barbarians are not the same thing as sides, they are units without a side. You need to be a heir in order to keep existing after your side falls, like Jillian was, but that doesn't mean your side continues existing without any territory. Until Jillian reclaimed the ruins of Faq, she was not a Faq unit, Faq didn't exist anymore, she was a barbarian unit with no side. In fact, the new Faq isn't even the same side as the old Faq, it's an entirely new side that just happens to have the same name and occupy the same territory. It may even be possible for other barbarian units to join or leave a barbarian group, just like real life mercenary bands. They just stick together because it's easier to gain the schmuckers they need to keep existing as a group.

[Goshen]

I think we'll find out pretty soon how that happened.

It's interesting that we've seen a glimpse of the upper limit for the economically sustainable size of a side. Of course, the fact that there is one speaks to the "design goals" that govern the creation of Erfworld. Apparently no side is meant to ever conquer the whole world without flat out breaking the game if 40 or 50 cities is an "absurd" size that begs to be split up. What that means to me is that either victory conditions are more complicated than total conquest and subjugation like in Risk, or Erfworld has no victory conditions; it's not really a game at all.

That may be true. But Rob has said before that Erfworld is not a game. It is a game-like world.

[oslecamo2_temp]

Precisely. Barbarians are not the same thing as sides, they are units without a side. You need to be a heir in order to keep existing after your side falls, like Jillian was, but that doesn't mean your side continues existing without any territory. Until Jillian reclaimed the ruins of Faq, she was not a Faq unit, Faq didn't exist anymore, she was a barbarian unit with no side. In fact, the new Faq isn't even the same side as the old Faq, it's an entirely new side that just happens to have the same name and occupy the same territory. It may even be possible for other barbarian units to join or leave a barbarian group, just like real life mercenary bands. They just stick together because it's easier to gain the schmuckers they need to keep existing as a group.

Sometimes in real life. Not in erfworld. Jillian herself told us how the hardest thing as a barbarian was that her side being grinded down due to her having no way to get new units (which are usually produced in cities). When FAQ fell, Jillian still had some other warlords and soldiers with her, by the time she's joined the coalition she only has some mounts left. Neither could she send extra people away to hold on their own, just disband them-"poof". Can't leave, can't join.

That's because, altough a barbarian, she was still a side with her own wallet, upkeeps and the ability to decide where to go and to command-rule her remaining forces as she saw fit. It's all in book 1 and the summer updates.

gobe:Go read the webcomic as well. It's quite nice actually. Hint: Jillian never stoped being a queen. She just choose to kept her royal status hidden.

[MarbitChow]

That's because, altough a barbarian, she was still a side with her own wallet, upkeeps and the ability to decide where to go and to command her remaining forces.
Hint: Jillian never stoped being a queen. She just choose to kept her royal status hidden.

No, Jillian never stopped being a ROYAL.
A 'queen' is a female royal leader of a side.
A side is a set of units that possesses a capital city.
When Jillian became a barbarian, she stopped having a side.

The concept is lifted straight from Civilization, in which barbarians are randomly spawned, but are not a side in the game sense.