Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) – Episode 028

[Swodaems]

I guess I read the line about schmucker reduction by each city differently; I saw it that once you crossed a threshold number of levels, all cities would start to have contributions suffer, not just the new ones, so each city might contribute 2% at this point in. If you are right in your reading (which I might agree with on the second read through), then you certainly afford a larger army... though I still question weather 14 cities worth of production can support that band around 50 cities of territory, especially given the scouting demands you have identified as being crucial

You are going to hit a point where the increase is minimal. So, when you expand beyond the limit, and convert to the band defense, you have got to keep the actual length of the border constant. The key becomes carefully choosing which cities you can expand to. This may involve attacking in strange and unorthodox manners.

Capitals can be key to this. Taking out one Capital and Ruler will Neutralize all of its Cities. Neutral territory is not dangerous, so you can take one key city that butts up against a border feature, and you gobble up the territory between the old border and it. You can then take the other cities backwards towards your territory. It all depends on the shape of the terrain. Since you aren't getting more troops, you simply have to make sure you're defending the same length border. This would explain Haffaton's patience. They expand, and then need to wait until the politics in the region are such that they can expand without increasing their vulnerability.

But ultimately, this leads to a problem with Barbarians. Barbarians popping in the rear are going to be facing increasingly defenseless cities. Solution?

Raze your Level 1's, then 2's, then 3's, and keep only 4's and 5's. Your income is per level, so cities with more levels provide more income per city. By not trying to defend cities that are restricted to lower level, you give up a a tiny fraction of your income, but become far more defensible. If city level max is equally distributed, of the 50 cities, 10 will be 5's and 10 4's, meaning they're defending cities of average 4.5, with 90 city levels, instead of 50 with average level 2.5 and 125 levels total. If distribution isn't that even, you'll add some 3's to a point of diminishing returns. 90 is still a lot of levels, so we may need to raze some 4's.

To increase difficulty, raze cities just inside the border, and retain them deep in the core. Only 4's and 5's stand between the outer band and the core, so it's harder to assault. As an invader assaults the big cities, you should lose more in defender upkeep costs than the lost revenue, so you should be able to start production of replacements as soon as the first falls. Keeping the 3's deeper near the core will make any invader's task more difficult, and provide for closer mutual defense.

But it does explain Haffaton's peaceful methods. By favouring scouts for the border, they need to diminish combat effectiveness. More scouts, fewer troops, so alternate methods become mandatory.

Kreistor, did you just say your plan for holding 50 cities is to raze 30 of them? Doesn't that defeat the point of being a 50 city side?

If one of those 50 is a capital, then it seems like it would be much more effective to simply pick some poor underling and say to him,"Congratulations, your performance has impressed me so much I am going to make you the head of my new child side. Your territory consists of your capital and and a bunch of quiet cities that I no longer need for purposes of troop production. You may notice that all of them, including your capital, happen to contain a sizeable force of my troops at the moment. That is because I am going to leave the skeleton guard I had defending them in place to help you out and possibly increase that guard over time until such time as your own troops can start to defend those cities. Since I like you so much I am going to do this for nothing more than the small fee of all your income minus your own upkeep, paid turnly. Also, before you go, I want to express you exactly how happy my side will be once you start doing things like producing your own units and fostering your own tribes of natural allies. I wager I won't be able to stop those previously mentioned skeleton guards from throwing roucous parties in your garrisons. Why, yes, I do happen to have troop producing cities surrounding you on all sides. Why ever do you ask?"

Humor aside, I feel we currently don't have enough information to actualy discuss the matter at this point. I don't know of any released information that decribes exactly how a city's pre-penalty income increases per city level relative to the income of a level 1 city? Is Erfworld using a percentage based penalty or one that cuts the income by X schmuckers per city? What is the starting point and growth rate of the penalty? Do cities produce more/less schmuckers based on things like terrain and location relative to other cities? What the travel time between the cities of the side in question? Most, if not all, of these questions require answers before we can start applying logic to the situation and expect it to be anywhere close to accurate.

[Housellama]

A side that maintains 50+ cities without some kind of moneymaking besides city output is going to be very poor, very fast. Even a little side like FAQ used lots of farms and still had to supplement their income with Jillian's mercenary work. We have several references to farms being important income. Warchalking was important for GK to take back not for the city itself, but for the farmland around it.

Barbarians that weren't created by a Side going away have been non-existent in the comic. We saw 40something turns in GK over the summer and not even a hint that there was anything out there to be worried about. They find Marbits, but nothing else. The one combat we hear about in that time that isn't related to GK's actions is Charlie probing. I realize that ruins have been said to occasionally generate Barbarians, but so far, that has been a non-event. 40 turns is a significant amount of time.

There's no indications that GK had anything other than scouting forces out in the field as a routine thing. The Archons are out there primarily to scout for Dragons, per Parson's ideas. We haven't seen any indications of any other Side doing anything different.

However, 'routine' times appear to be extremely rare in Erfworld. So far the world appears to be set up such that if a Side isn't actively engaged with another Side, it is preparing to do so. Given that, I really don't see Barbarians as being a significant factor.

I suspect that the only reason Haffaton is/was able to maintain such a large Side is because of their very heavy reliance on Hippymancy. Given Olive's abilities and those of Wanda, as well as their natural alliance with the High Elves, I surmise that they don't maintain a large standing army, and that their field army is heavily supplemented by Decrypted, which are very inexpensive if not completely free.

Hippymancy is probably Haffaton's first defense. With Hippymancy, the would only need a token force in every city to slow down an attacker. Even if they only delayed an attacking force for two turns, that's a lot of time for Haffaton to mount a counter in some form or fashion (Possibly in the form of Olive and/or Wanda).

Given what we know about economics, my opinion is that Haffaton is likely only functional as a large Side because of Hippymancy. Otherwise things get very complicated very quickly. Given that Haffaton is unusual both for its size and its reliance on Hippymancy, I can't help but feel that one is related to the other.

[Kreistor]

Swodaems, yeah, I did. Remember that Jillian doesn't have facts about Haffaton, only rumour. So where she heard 50 cities, the origin of the rumour might have been 50 city sites.

Or, worse, they have 50 L 4's and 5's, making them truly enormous.

There's no indications that GK had anything other than scouting forces out in the field as a routine thing. The Archons are out there primarily to scout for Dragons, per Parson's ideas. We haven't seen any indications of any other Side doing anything different.

We have only one example of a 50 city Side. No other Side has enough cities to try a border defense. 14 is just not big enough to empty any inner cities. So you're right that we have only one example, but you're wrong that you can draw your conclusion based on the actions of a single city Side like GK, or even a Side with multiple cities like Jetstone which is too small to try that defensive strategy.

Barbarians that weren't created by a Side going away have been non-existent in the comic.

There's a quote around someplace from Rob on that. He didn't want accusations of Deus Ex Machina when they randomly show up and change the plot. They exist, but will never appear in the comic.

[Rizban]

I still think the best option for attacking an enemy employing an eggshell defense would be to pierce the outer defense as mentioned then attack the weakly defended level 1s as Kreistor mentioned would be the only real option. Jillian herself did something like that on her way back to FAQ. You charge in and quickly wipe the Tower and Garrison, forcing a capture of all surviving units, then raze the city and move on until you're low on move. Yes, the invasion force will eventually be defeated, but capturing and razing multiple low level cities will not only boost their side's treasury but will also rob the defending side of income and force them to spend schmuckers to rebuild the cities.

You don't need siege or other slow units to trudge through the outer defenses. A highly mobile force of heavy fliers, like megalogwiffs, could use the tactic that Housellama suggested very effectively. If you factor strike force's cost to pop into your budget as loss, then you can determine how many cities you need to raze to make a profit. Provide a sufficient force to be successful, and you can really mess up your enemy and give yourself a hefty boost in the process.

Better yet, send two highly mobile forces in together and have them strike out in opposite directions once inside and coordinate with an ally to do the same from the enemy's other front. You then have your units attack any smaller stacks in the field that they encounter and flee from any large stacks that could threaten them. You might not win the war against Haffaton that way, but you could do enough damage to make them scramble for a couple of turns as they devote resources to stopping the strike forces to prevent further losses before they can mount a retaliation against you.

Since such a large side is stated to be difficult to fund and almost unimaginable to sustain, razing a number of lightly defended cities could seriously hamper them such that they have to start disbanding units to maintain upkeep, preventing them from using Kreistor's suggestion of massive troop popping to rush to the defense in the trouble spots.

In fact, such a strategy would probably be key to defeating a side the size of Haffaton. Destabilize the economy enough to make things hard, forcing them to disband and redistribute troops, weakening the side suddenly, and a couple of heirs in outlying cities are likely to see it as their Duty to become a splinter side to preserve their side's existence in some form. A strong, mobile strike force might just be the best way to defeat a side of Haffaton's size using an outer band of defense.

And that's all really rambling, but it's 2AM, and I'm still a little hazy from all the champagne at the wedding I attended earlier tonight.

[mortissimus]

Barbarians that weren't created by a Side going away have been non-existent in the comic.

There's a quote around someplace from Rob on that. He didn't want accusations of Deus Ex Machina when they randomly show up and change the plot. They exist, but will never appear in the comic.

And there is a Rob quote somewhere about randomly popped Barbarian warlords being more common (or was it much more common?) then previous Rulers. (Regarding Ansom and Jillian.)

So, we know they are there, and we know they are more common then Jillian+Wanda. Still leaves much on how much of a problem they are. And for that matter, how much of a problem they would be if one went on a razing spree.

[splintermute]

I suspect that the only reason Haffaton is/was able to maintain such a large Side is because of their very heavy reliance on Hippymancy. Given Olive's abilities and those of Wanda, as well as their natural alliance with the High Elves, I surmise that they don't maintain a large standing army, and that their field army is heavily supplemented by Decrypted, which are very inexpensive if not completely free.

You mean uncroaked - it's too early for decrypted. I think it may have been established that uncroaked are upkeep free, an advantage offset by their impermanence. This means you can't really maintain a standing army of uncroaked, unless you have a continuous supply of fresh corpses.

[Kreistor]

I still think the best option for attacking an enemy employing an eggshell defense would be to pierce the outer defense as mentioned then attack the weakly defended level 1s as Kreistor mentioned would be the only real option.

Actually, that was others. I never presented a strategy for actually defeating Haffaton. I've never really thought how I'd defeat it.

You don't need siege or other slow units to trudge through the outer defenses.

Which is why I proposed razing 1's and 2's. The enemy has to face superior defenses for your low troop count.

But attacking 1's hurts Haffaton the least. You're destroying only 1 city level which was producing very diminished revenue.

A highly mobile force of heavy fliers, like megalogwiffs, could use the tactic that Housellama suggested very effectively.

Not everyone seems to have access to such forces, or at the least they don't produce them in large numbers. I suspect they're expensive, so difficult to fund. But you will face the problem of Tower defenses, and see your force erode.

Provide a sufficient force to be successful, and you can really mess up your enemy and give yourself a hefty boost in the process.

While you can easily make a profit, you won't mess up the enemy. You're doing the least damage by attacking Lvel 1's.

Better yet, send two highly mobile forces in together and have them strike out in opposite directions once inside and coordinate with an ally to do the same from the enemy's other front.

I doubt one Small Side could afford two such airborne forces, but finding Allies against the massive Side will be absolutely necessary.

make them scramble for a couple of turns as they devote resources to stopping the strike forces to prevent further losses before they can mount a retaliation against you.

Like I said, I'll threaten your cities instead. Capital falls, you disband.

preventing them from using Kreistor's suggestion of massive troop popping to rush to the defense in the trouble spots.

I never made such a suggestion. What I said was that you will probably destroy more units in Upkeep than revenue from lost city levels, which means I have revenue space to pop troops again, so you'll be facing ever stronger defenses. Further, they'll be tailored to fight your specific units, instead of being general defensive types.

In fact, such a strategy would probably be key to defeating a side the size of Haffaton.

No. In this case, the microscopic contribution of the Level 1 cities you're destroying is not going to hurt the large Side as much as you contend.

Destabilize the economy enough to make things hard, forcing them to disband and redistribute troops

Which presumes no treasury. Revenue problems can be handled with a deep treasury that can buy the time to recover from the lost income, without suffering any permanent losses.

a couple of heirs

You can't have more than one heir, and so far, I don't think you've created a severe revenue issue. Every city you destroy can be retaken cheaply because you're not leaving forces behind to defend them.

And that's all really rambling, but it's 2AM, and I'm still a little hazy from all the champagne at the wedding I attended earlier tonight.

How to defeat Haffaton:

1) You need an Alliance with as many Sides as possible. Critical for this may be Charlie, who has contact with everyone. Use him to find Sides on the far end of Haffaton to coordinate.

2) Attack as many Cities simultaneously as possible. Attacking 4's and 5's will take large numbers. Focus on 2's and 3's. By attacking from multiple directions, Haffaton has two poor choices: defend many places with middling defenses, or a few places with large.
2a) When you see large defenses, retreat from the attack.
2b) Where defenses are thin exploit.

3) Do not penetrate deep. Surgical strikes only. Your attackers are also your defenders, so if you let them go too far, your Side is made vulnerable.Strike and retreat.

4) Fight in the field, wherever possible. In cities, you have to attack defensive bonuses. Draw the enemy out into the field and you're not trying to overcome castle walls, even if you wind up losing more units than you kill.

5) Be unpredictable. Change tactics. Change army make-up. Don't let the enemy predict where you're attacking next.

5) Fight. Everywhere, fight. Turn the battle into a war of attrition. Haffaton's weakness is it have a smaller revenue stream than multiple small size. To make that work for you, you need to make Haffaton recruit constantly, so that you eat through its treasury, and make that revnue stream matter.

Attrition is the way to defeat Haffaton.

[BLANDCorporatio]

I wonder ...

Have we ever seen or heard of a city being built? Not claimed, not re-built after razing. Built where no city had been built before.

It should be the case that it is possible to build cities, in principle, wherever. But I wanted to check if anyone remembers that event actually happening.

Because, to continue a line of speculation from last time, if cities can be built only at certain, sparse, locations- sparse as in few, but they tend to appear in clumps- then there'd be a very natural answer to why there is not one Battlespace forever active on the continent, as well as why it doesn't pay off to expand too far.

[Lamech]

How to defeat Haffaton:

1) You need an Alliance with as many Sides as possible. Critical for this may be Charlie, who has contact with everyone. Use him to find Sides on the far end of Haffaton to coordinate.

2) Attack as many Cities simultaneously as possible. Attacking 4's and 5's will take large numbers. Focus on 2's and 3's. By attacking from multiple directions, Haffaton has two poor choices: defend many places with middling defenses, or a few places with large.
2a) When you see large defenses, retreat from the attack.
2b) Where defenses are thin exploit.

3) Do not penetrate deep. Surgical strikes only. Your attackers are also your defenders, so if you let them go too far, your Side is made vulnerable.Strike and retreat.

4) Fight in the field, wherever possible. In cities, you have to attack defensive bonuses. Draw the enemy out into the field and you're not trying to overcome castle walls, even if you wind up losing more units than you kill.

5) Be unpredictable. Change tactics. Change army make-up. Don't let the enemy predict where you're attacking next.

5) Fight. Everywhere, fight. Turn the battle into a war of attrition. Haffaton's weakness is it have a smaller revenue stream than multiple small size. To make that work for you, you need to make Haffaton recruit constantly, so that you eat through its treasury, and make that revnue stream matter.

Attrition is the way to defeat Haffaton.

I think you are making a faulty assumption here: Namely that popping units (from a city) costs something. We have no evidence of that and Parson even planned on paying for a side by popping units, and harvesting them. So unless you have more cities to pop units than Haffaton in your alliance*, attrition by fighting in the fields is a losing plan; they can replace losses faster than you. You must target their revenue sources. As Jillian has pointed out that probably isn't their cities. Go after foraging elves, raze cities (they need to rebuild them remember which takes cash), blow up farms (at the very least hand made ones should be destructible) ect.

*If you do fancy tactics aren't needed, you can support a bigger army in all likelihood and you should have more casters, and have more revenue to get help from the MK. You have more troops and more magic. Just crush Haffaton; it isn't complicated at that point.

It should be the case that it is possible to build cities, in principle, wherever. But I wanted to check if anyone remembers that event actually happening.

This has never happened in comic. In fact, it was mentioned that with no city sites in the MK all buildings need to be built by hand. So, it is possible to build structures by hand. However with no city site you can't do the spend shmuckers and get a city thing. We don't know what would happen if you went and built all the structures of a city by hand though. We do know that building a farm by hand at least does something (the hippiemancers do this), so that concept might apply to cities as well. Furthermore terrain can be changed with sufficient magic (or possibly other ways, but we don't know one way or another), so it might also be possible to build a city site with the right link; then you can build a city in the standard way.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Indeed, it seems to be quite natural to assume that cities can be built "anywhere". Ok, maybe there's a limit like, "must only be built at least six hexes away from any other city" or something like that, whatever.

But supposing there's nothing, in principle, to stop a side building as it expands, the question then would be, how come there's more than one battlespace in Erfworld?

[Lamech]

Indeed, it seems to be quite natural to assume that cities can be built "anywhere". Ok, maybe there's a limit like, "must only be built at least six hexes away from any other city" or something like that, whatever.

But supposing there's nothing, in principle, to stop a side building as it expands, the question then would be, how come there's more than one battlespace in Erfworld?

Umm... because most sides don't seem to build things by hand? And changing the terrain seems something essentially never done. Cities can only be built in the standard way at a city site, so if a side wanted to build cities as it expanded it would need to do all the work by hand. Most sides don't even seem to build there own farms, but just use the preexisting ones tied to city sites. I can hunt down the link to this if you really want. And that is assuming it would even be possible to build a "city" by hand at all.
Cities can only be built by spending shmuckers at specific "city sites".

[BLANDCorporatio]

Cities can only be built by spending shmuckers at specific "city sites".

A link would be nice for that, but it's my impression as well that this is the case. Some things make more sense that way. The battlespace thing for one, as well as the "sides can't [efficiently] grow too large" bit. The latter may be explained by any number of game mechanics, granted, but if you limit city building to only city sites, and if said sites appear as clumps with large voids between them, then there's a nice geometric reason for why expansion results in diminished returns.

[drachefly]

You can't have more than one heir

No, a side can definitely have more than one heir. Look at the circumstances that led to Tramennis being popped without being designated an heir - they had a surplus of heirs.

[Kreistor]

No, a side can definitely have more than one heir. Look at the circumstances that led to Tramennis being popped without being designated an heir - they had a surplus of heirs.

Not precisely.

"Prince Tramennis was the sixteenth of Slately's twenty-three sons and daughters, popped at a time when they were flush with princes and princesses but generally short of warlords. Therefore, he had not allotted the extra turns to pop this one as an heir."

They had a surplus of Princes and Princesses who were not Warlords.He doesn't mention whether he had a designated heir. He may have been leaving the position open for the ones in the court to intrigue over.

[Gorky]

For some reason I have intense dislike of Haffaton, but Gobwin Knob I like. Weird.

[Lamech]

Cities can only be built by spending shmuckers at specific "city sites".

A link would be nice for that, but it's my impression as well that this is the case. Some things make more sense that way. The battlespace thing for one, as well as the "sides can't [efficiently] grow too large" bit. The latter may be explained by any number of game mechanics, granted, but if you limit city building to only city sites, and if said sites appear as clumps with large voids between them, then there's a nice geometric reason for why expansion results in diminished returns.

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/ ... -11-25.png
Specifically "Everyone needed a wall built, a garden tilled, a well dug, a foundation excavated. There were no city sites; construction was a manual industry." Assuming Rob isn't trying to trick us the lack of city sites makes building manual. So no spending shmuckers to make a city because of the lack of city sites.

[Kreistor]

I think you are making a faulty assumption here: Namely that popping units (from a city) costs something.

I would be dumbfounded if popping units cost nothing, when we know that popping heirs does.

We have no evidence of that and Parson even planned on paying for a side by popping units, and harvesting them.

If the cost of the unit is less than the upkeep saved from provisions provided, then it is still a good idea.

So unless you have more cities to pop units than Haffaton in your alliance*, attrition by fighting in the fields is a losing plan; they can replace losses faster than you.

Not quite. Remember that we're spread out on the border, and all within short range. His cities are on average much further from the border. Consequently, the upkeep cost paid to get forces to the border is lower for us.

Further, we can use that higher production against him. If it does not cost him to produce, only pay upkeep, then we can use that against him by *not* fighting. Make ourselves a threat to force him to move units to deal with a threat, and then back off and threaten elsewhere. There is more than one way to burn into his revenue.

You must target their revenue sources.

No, you can also achieve that goal by making him spend it.

As Jillian has pointed out that probably isn't their cities. Go after foraging elves, raze cities (they need to rebuild them remember which takes cash), blow up farms (at the very least hand made ones should be destructible) ect.

Foraging can be solved by setting up a supply train. Forage further from the border and ship the food to the front. Heck, Jillian foraged fish out of a fountain.

*If you do fancy tactics aren't needed, you can support a bigger army in all likelihood and you should have more casters, and have more revenue to get help from the MK. You have more troops and more magic. Just crush Haffaton; it isn't complicated at that point.

No one strategy will work forever. There are counters that can disarm every strategy or tactic. The key is knowing what you're going to do when the current strategy fails ahead of it failing, so you're not locked up trying to force one trick to work.

[BLANDCorporatio]

http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/?px=%2F2009-11-25.png
Specifically "Everyone needed a wall built, a garden tilled, a well dug, a foundation excavated. There were no city sites; construction was a manual industry." Assuming Rob isn't trying to trick us the lack of city sites makes building manual. So no spending shmuckers to make a city because of the lack of city sites.

Excellent! Now if only we had evidence that city sites occur in clumps, then my favourite explanation for certain features of Erfworld will have legs.

[Whispri]

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.

Yes, she has a small army, but, well, she can turn a small army into a large, cheap, army in one battle with a little Luckmancy, then threaten their Outposts. It's true she has to pay upkeep, but she only needs an army to last a Turn to take a City with it. And Haffaton's troops? They'll be carrying coins, the value will be low, but it all adds up. Haffaton can't risk croaking her or forcing her to disband, they need her alive and she knows it. And there are ruins out there for her to explore, a bit of adventuring could pay off very well. The scorched Erf thing sounds like a non-starter BTW, thanks to animals repoping to replace them, plus it'd be just asking her to pick off small groups of their soldiers, thus gaining food, equipment, money and bodies to Uncroak.

She might. But it would be a tall order, given that Wanda loved Tommy more than life itself. It remains quite possible, perhaps even probable, that Wanda quietly surrendered to the group of horsemen she heard approaching at the end of Part I. But if she didn't and if she defeated them when they tried force? Haffaton will have a Boop of a time catching her.

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.

Would Turnamancy even work on a Barbarian Chief? Even if so, Wanda's a bit miffed with Olive these Turns, considers her kiss to be foul, is never planning to have her skin touch Olive's clothes again and so on. And Fate? If Wanda were Fated to be captured by Haffaton, why did Larry lose his head?

[Kreistor]

They'll be carrying coins, the value will be low, but it all adds up.

Citation, please. I know of no reference to Units being able to carry schmuckers. Only Warlords, and then only when they're working with the treasury.