How to defeat the perfect warlord.

[Ytaker]

I was thinking about Parson, about his strengths and weaknesses. I came to some conclusions.

Parson's strengths. Strong tactical abilities. He is good at moving troops.
Weird mechanics. He did the falling thing.
Use of all strengths. He used his dirtamancer well, he looks into every detail of a battle.
He will cheat to kill leaders, get an advantage. Good at using diplomacy to cheat.
Good at targetting leadership.

All are well known, and so I shall not explain them in detail.

Less well defined is his weaknesses.

Parson's weaknesses. Spotty strategic thinking. He doesn't think ahead often and makes lots of stupid moves. His first major move was with the dwagons where he used them heavily to kill his enemies siege, but didn't leave them enough in reserve to defend them (prizing temporary gain over long term solvency) and repeats this with the lack of orders to Ossomer to help protect his Archons (not having long term solvency as a goal at all). He decided to join his troops for emotional reasons and so didn't destroy the enemy city, priding being with the troops over protecting the troops from harm. He waited to talk with the Carnymancer for a minute or so, not prioritizing his goal when he was dedicated it, thus giving enemy casters time to stop him.

Poor interpersonal skills. He failed to understand Ansom or Jill's minds enough to make releasing her effective. He fails to manage Wanda or Stanley repeatedly, and both do many stupid acts. Both have massive buttons that are easy to press which make them happy (fate and respect) but he fails at pressing either. He failed to understand Ossomer's emotional state. He was good with his dirtamancer, both being nerdy.

Lack of trustworthiness. No side is going to want to ally with him because he repeatedly breaks parley.

He doesn't protect his key troops well when they're not the main focus. He loses all the dwagons after his first attack by not defending them at all. He throws his main caster into every fight (almost losing her to kingworld), doesn't do a nything much to protect his archons after the rest of his troops drop such as stacking them with Ossomer, didn't kill the castle when he could.

He isn't a strong warlord, is easily killable and doesn't offer much bonus.

All of these are understandable weaknesses. All are very exploitable. In games I often do similar things. I forget about some troops and someone ganks them. I have silly emotional whims and so make stupid moves. I don't do much research into the strengths and weaknesses of my leaders so they face unexpected losses. In games I often backstab and lie to gain minor advantages.

So to defeat him, do as follows.

Recognise the urges that his leaders have. Wanda wants to satisfy fate, Stanley wants to be a big man and have big sexy men, Ansom and Ossomer want to show honor. Ansom and Wanda both love Jill. This has often been used to lead those people into stupid acts. Even if he is giving them tactically correct movements you can make them be stupid.
Have a fast mobile response unit. Notice which troops Parson is ignoring or which ones are critically weakened by his heavy assault and destroy them. This has also been used against him lots.
Distract him at key moments with parley and interesting trivia. Turn his foolishness back on him, he doesn't know how to prioritize well.
Protect your leadership with land and air screening stacks at all times.
Trap your leadership. He loves targetting your leadership directly with leadership so give them shockamancy magical items and protection. Buy it if you have to. Tell them to kill the enemy leadership.
Don't trust parley, kill him if you have him on the ropes. Many have lost to him through this.
Play defensively, he plays offensively and throws everything at you for one massive punch and so you want to withstand his assault and counterattack. Ossomer failed at this, taking his entire army outside the city for no particular reason.
Kill Parson.

Any other suggestions, or counter arguments?

[drachefly]

Have a fast mobile response unit. Notice which troops Parson is ignoring or which ones are critically weakened by his heavy assault and destroy them. This has also been used against him lots.

I see one time - the dwagons.
Expository Bridge doesn't count at all.
What else is there?

Ossomer failed at this, taking his entire army outside the city for no particular reason.

Getting past the bridge would have allowed them to strike the city with those heavies OR take outlying cities and farms, going for an economic victory. Jetstone couldn't maintain its forces without those.

As for the dwagon donut - don't forget that in order to pull off a win vs the weakened dwagons, Jetstone had to leave most of its top units in the open, completely exposed. The remaining dwagons could have killed them off next turn very easily. It was like leaving one of your two connected, not-pinned rooks threatened by the opposing queen. When she takes one, GO FOR IT! Stanley's the one who made that a true mistake by not taking advantage.

[Sieggy]

The problem is that the enemy (whoever it might be) doesn't have all the info that we, as readers, have. Given that no one other than Charley really knows what happened at tBfGK,all they really know is that GK somehow went from being on the ropes to this horrendous force out to overthrow the Titanic Mandate. And Charley only shares for money or when he really has no choice. As it stands, Parson is still an unknown quantity for all but a handful of people (though now that he's in the MK, word will spread like wildfire). But still, they know nothing about him other than he's the most dangerous potato on Erf.

[Ytaker]

Have a fast mobile response unit. Notice which troops Parson is ignoring or which ones are critically weakened by his heavy assault and destroy them. This has also been used against him lots.

I see one time - the dwagons.
Expository Bridge doesn't count at all.
What else is there?

Expository bridge has him using a fast mobile attack unit, and it is super effective.
Jill used it to take out Ansom, who was left with no fliers to defend him. Even a single dwagon would have been able to screen him and let the archers take out some foes, retaining his massive bonus for those troops.
The archons were summoned to defeat Wanda, who launched an unsupported attack on Wanda. More understandable though, as GK had nothing in that area.
Recently we have had the king use his casters and fliers to attack the archons. Rather stupidly the king also went. Should have just buffed up Ossomer.

Ossomer failed at this, taking his entire army outside the city for no particular reason.

Getting past the bridge would have allowed them to strike the city with those heavies OR take outlying cities and farms, going for an economic victory. Jetstone couldn't maintain its forces without those.

GK is known to have a massive flier force, so they couldn't stop GK ransacking their outlying cities without splitting up. Their plan was to destroy the infantry by charging them. Not that they couldn't have done that near the city, and better- have the archers rain ditto'd arrows down on the enemies and when a gap in the wall is made pour heavies through, supported by heals. They utterly ignored the fact that their enemy had a vast army of dwagons and archons which could easily be veiled. Blatant stupidity.

As for the dwagon donut - don't forget that in order to pull off a win vs the weakened dwagons, Jetstone had to leave most of its top units in the open, completely exposed. The remaining dwagons could have killed them off next turn very easily. It was like leaving one of your two connected, not-pinned rooks threatened by the opposing queen. When she takes one, GO FOR IT! Stanley's the one who made that a true mistake by not taking advantage.

As they noted, their two top units, Ansom and the the bat warlord, could have blown their way out of the trap. It would have been a bad blow but not an insurmountable one. If they had left some fully healed units close to the wounded ones though they could have taken out any enemies that came that way, with the aid of the uncroaked warlords's bonus. Instead he gambled all of his units on a strike against the leadership that might not even have worked.

He left the wounded and damaged warlords and dwagons completely unsupported. They were then croaked, entirely predictably. He regularly leaves weak units unsupported and bad stuff happens to them. He's forgetful.

The problem is that the enemy (whoever it might be) doesn't have all the info that we, as readers, have. Given that no one other than Charley really knows what happened at tBfGK,all they really know is that GK somehow went from being on the ropes to this horrendous force out to overthrow the Titanic Mandate. And Charley only shares for money or when he really has no choice. As it stands, Parson is still an unknown quantity for all but a handful of people (though now that he's in the MK, word will spread like wildfire). But still, they know nothing about him other than he's the most dangerous potato on Erf.

Charley shared info with Trammenis, and it's possible one of his old gaming buddies will be summoned in to fight him. Given his glaring flaws it should be easy for someone to inflict massive casulties on his forces.

[Lamech]

Parson's weaknesses. Spotty strategic thinking. He doesn't think ahead often and makes lots of stupid moves. His first major move was with the dwagons where he used them heavily to kill his enemies siege, but didn't leave them enough in reserve to defend them (prizing temporary gain over long term solvency) and repeats this with the lack of orders to Ossomer to help protect his Archons (not having long term solvency as a goal at all). He decided to join his troops for emotional reasons and so didn't destroy the enemy city, priding being with the troops over protecting the troops from harm. He waited to talk with the Carnymancer for a minute or so, not prioritizing his goal when he was dedicated it, thus giving enemy casters time to stop him.

He dealt with a danger, the carny could have shot him in the back. And the dwagon plan nearly worked except a) Wanda did not provide an accurate assessment of her abilities, he should have been told about the weakness of the suggestion spell and told of her healing scroll stash plus b) Stanley snatched defeat from the Jaws of Victory. To wit, Ansom was vulnerable and the dwagons were about to eat him. Furthermore the reserve dwagons in GK could have moved the remaining warlords out to battle to repeat the dwagon tactics. (Or a uncroaked Ansom+co.) The archery cover was lessened (no Woodsy elves), and most of the dwagons lived. (24 survivors when 19 were used in the attack. Roughly a 25% increase in damage and 10% wasn't enough to take the walls. Then, ignoring the attuned arkenpliers, the tunnels would be wiped in the same manner as before)

IIRC the archons were scattered about the battlefield hiding with foolamancy. That's the best form of protection they had. The only mistake was not ordering Ossomer away from the tower.

Poor interpersonal skills. He failed to understand Ansom or Jill's minds enough to make releasing her effective. He fails to manage Wanda or Stanley repeatedly, and both do many stupid acts. Both have massive buttons that are easy to press which make them happy (fate and respect) but he fails at pressing either. He failed to understand Ossomer's emotional state. He was good with his dirtamancer, both being nerdy.

He can't really be held accountable for Stanley being a moron. Nor can he check on the emotional state of every decrypted, especially when as far as he knew they were completely loyal.

Lack of trustworthiness. No side is going to want to ally with him because he repeatedly breaks parley.

There were no witnesses (except for the completely untrustworthy Charlie), and the royals have broken parley not once, not twice, but three times before Parson did the second time. (If you get technical and say Jillian's didn't count then neither did Parson's. The poop just sort of fell, he never actually attacked anyone.)

He doesn't protect his key troops well when they're not the main focus. He loses all the dwagons after his first attack by not defending them at all. He throws his main caster into every fight (almost losing her to kingworld), doesn't do a nything much to protect his archons after the rest of his troops drop such as stacking them with Ossomer, didn't kill the castle when he could.

Except for the lack of orders to Ossomer this is pretty much all his overemotionalness. Stacking the archons with Ossomer would have put them all in one location for easy volleying. And Parson can only overcome so much stupidity.


Parson's main problem is him being overemotional. He wants to join the battle. Sure, joining the battle might help, but not as much as winning the battle by downing the tower, and probably not enough to counter weight the magic kingdom's ire. He basically took a totally hands off approach up until he was made chief warlord. He didn't have Wanda work on her other kinds of magic, or spend her juice producing magic items. He hasn't seemed to work with Sizemore to design a new trap system to defend GK. If he really did care about protecting his troops then he would have had the dwagons down the tower, if Jetstone stops them then they are forced to fight non-optimally, he gets a few free hits to the tower, ect. If they work? Tower down, king dead, troops safe. (Or at least tower down, some troops dead, that much less to capture.)

[Ytaker]

He dealt with a danger, the carny could have shot him in the back.

True, you are right. So he should have simply backed off, staff in hand, and asked him to give him the scroll. That would have accomplished all of his goals at once. Or he should have been quick to talk with him. He also chatted with Sizemore, who wouldn't have shot him in the back.

And the dwagon plan nearly worked except a) Wanda did not provide an accurate assessment of her abilities, he should have been told about the weakness of the suggestion spell and told of her healing scroll stash plus

He treats people and spells as absolute, with no note of personal volition. This is not the first time he makes that mistake. It's reasonable for him to make mistakes about things he does not know. But he makes those mistakes again and again.

b) Stanley snatched defeat from the Jaws of Victory. To wit, Ansom was vulnerable and the dwagons were about to eat him. Furthermore the reserve dwagons in GK could have moved the remaining warlords out to battle to repeat the dwagon tactics. (Or a uncroaked Ansom+co.) The archery cover was lessened (no Woodsy elves), and most of the dwagons lived. (24 survivors when 19 were used in the attack. Roughly a 25% increase in damage and 10% wasn't enough to take the walls. Then, ignoring the attuned arkenpliers, the tunnels would be wiped in the same manner as before)

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0077.html

First, note that Jill would be dead if they had more dwagons close by to engage Ansom and screen the assault on Jill. Ansom saved her from death. They then could have likely defeated Ansom and the bat warlord with one or two more dwagons who weren't terriblely injured.

Second, note that yes, while they may have been able to defeat Ansom it was far from definite.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0079.html

They noted it was an if. Another all or nothing tactic. They don't know what assets Charlie has in the area, they don't know what surprises are coming up. So Parson should have planned ahead, by buttering Stanley up to the prospects of picking up another beautiful man for his collection. Wanda could decrypt Ansom perfectly, Ansom could do whatever Stanley wanted for a couple turns while he was fresh. They should have made some plans for the future.

But no, no time for planning for the future. Stanley had no idea what was happening and so he fled. Parson's tactics were reasonable, if a bit dodgy, but his strategy was terrible. You should have long term goals and plan to achieve them and plan for failure.

IIRC the archons were scattered about the battlefield hiding with foolamancy. That's the best form of protection they had. The only mistake was not ordering Ossomer away from the tower.

Pretty big mistake.

He can't really be held accountable for Stanley being a moron. Nor can he check on the emotional state of every decrypted, especially when as far as he knew they were completely loyal.

Assuming that your units have no personal volition is a mistake he often makes. It comes from a long career of units just being pieces on a table.

And Ossomer is an extremely importanted decrypted, he is providing level 9 leadership to 27 archons. He's worth a little attention. A perfect commander does pay attention to the position and emotional state of all the key units under his command if he doesn't want to lose them.

There were no witnesses (except for the completely untrustworthy Charlie), and the royals have broken parley not once, not twice, but three times before Parson did the second time. (If you get technical and say Jillian's didn't count then neither did Parson's. The poop just sort of fell, he never actually attacked anyone.)

No one knows about the Royal's betrayals, while Charlie is happy to tell anyone about Parson's betrayals. Eventually someone may listen.

In general parleys almost always go bad for the person who assumes the other person is trustworthy. Diplomacy is evil, as the titans planned it. Diplomacy is the devil's work.

Except for the lack of orders to Ossomer this is pretty much all his overemotionalness. Stacking the archons with Ossomer would have put them all in one location for easy volleying. And Parson can only overcome so much stupidity.

I phrased that poorly and shortly, and yes, putting them all in one location would be a bad idea, i agree.

http://www.erfworld.com/page/73/

Ossomer looked around, in a rising panic. He was not currently stacked with anyone. Should they launch a bum's rush at him with all of their forces, they very well could croak or capture him, and return to the tower. With Luck, they would survive without taking too much damage from the Archons.

Titans. If he allowed that to happen, it would be the second time today.

That thought should have been mortifying. But the moment it occurred to him, a soft calm infused his stomach and chest, and flowed like warm pipe smoke up his neck to fill his head. If he allowed that to happen.

As he noted, he was unstacked with archons and thus was vulnerable to a bum rush for the second time. Parson should have predicted that leaving a unit unstacked after a negotiation was a poor idea and stacked him with a couple archons. The king's assault would not have gone so well if he had looked to the mistakes of the past and not repeated them. The archons would do far more damage and take far less and the king would be dead.

There were just too many things happening and so understandably Parson got overwhelmed and forgot where one of his units was. Another reason why battle commanders should be watching their troops, not proving their metal out with the troops. Ossomer himself noted it was a mistake.

Parson's main problem is him being overemotional. He wants to join the battle. Sure, joining the battle might help, but not as much as winning the battle by downing the tower, and probably not enough to counter weight the magic kingdom's ire. He basically took a totally hands off approach up until he was made chief warlord. He didn't have Wanda work on her other kinds of magic, or spend her juice producing magic items. He hasn't seemed to work with Sizemore to design a new trap system to defend GK. If he really did care about protecting his troops then he would have had the dwagons down the tower, if Jetstone stops them then they are forced to fight non-optimally, he gets a few free hits to the tower, ect. If they work? Tower down, king dead, troops safe. (Or at least tower down, some troops dead, that much less to capture.)[/quote]

Also a big mistake, yes.

[Lamech]

They noted it was an if. Another all or nothing tactic. They don't know what assets Charlie has in the area, they don't know what surprises are coming up. So Parson should have planned ahead, by buttering Stanley up to the prospects of picking up another beautiful man for his collection. Wanda could decrypt Ansom perfectly, Ansom could do whatever Stanley wanted for a couple turns while he was fresh. They should have made some plans for the future.

You mean that Parson knew exactly what forces Charlie had in the area? And exactly what forces the coalition had in the area. In fact, the only misinformation, or spotty info that Parson had was the direct fault of Wanda. Parson can't magically make his subordinates be competent, and he can't magically read Wanda's mind or make Stanley do what he wants. Also everything was an all or nothing tactic, sometimes you do need to make the best of a bad situation.

First, note that Jill would be dead if they had more dwagons close by to engage Ansom and screen the assault on Jill. Ansom saved her from death. They then could have likely defeated Ansom and the bat warlord with one or two more dwagons who weren't terriblely injured.

Second, note that yes, while they may have been able to defeat Ansom it was far from definite.

... How do you go from "They might have won with a couple extra dwagons" to "24 healthy dwagons might not be enough". The "if" was "if they get attacked". 19 nearly dead dwagons destroyed most of Jillian's mounts, and did a good chunk of damage to the survivors. 24 healthy would destroy them.

Pretty big mistake.

Ossomer is a level 9 warlord. He should probably have a bit of common sense. Yes Parson's plan should have included more orders for Ossomer, but really? Not that big of oversight to entrust one minor task to Ossomer's own discretion.

[drachefly]

Have a fast mobile response unit. Notice which troops Parson is ignoring or which ones are critically weakened by his heavy assault and destroy them. This has also been used against him lots.

I see one time - the dwagons.
Expository Bridge doesn't count at all.
What else is there?

Expository bridge has him using a fast mobile attack unit, and it is super effective.

Yes, Parson used one. That counts, but not as an example against him. I'm referring to times he left himself open like this.

Jill used it to take out Ansom, who was left with no fliers to defend him. Even a single dwagon would have been able to screen him and let the archers take out some foes, retaining his massive bonus for those troops.

First off, Parson was not at that time chief warlord - Ansom was. Second, it was only possible due to Kingworld, which is on par with the volcano trap for unforseeability.

The archons were summoned to defeat Wanda, who launched an unsupported attack on Wanda. More understandable though, as GK had nothing in that area.

1) I trust you mean Ansom.
2) Charlie was neutral at that point, and had allowed Wanda to pass unimpeded through airspace - escorted and with a stack of unipegataurs and a mid-level warlord, no less!
3) If Wanda had finished Ansom instead of diving for the pliers, he wouldn't have been able to hire the archons

GK is known to have a massive flier force, so they couldn't stop GK ransacking their outlying cities without splitting up.

Was it so known at that time? They had a handful of dwagons survive the battle of the pass, and one popped in the city after, and they could have popped maybe a handful more. That they had so many fliers was a largely unforseeable strategic secret.

As for the dwagon donut - don't forget that in order to pull off a win vs the weakened dwagons, Jetstone had to leave most of its top units in the open, completely exposed. The remaining dwagons could have killed them off next turn very easily. It was like leaving one of your two connected, not-pinned rooks threatened by the opposing queen. When she takes one, GO FOR IT! Stanley's the one who made that a true mistake by not taking advantage.

As they noted, their two top units, Ansom and the the bat warlord, could have blown their way out of the trap.[/quote]

No. They could not have blown their way out of the trap. They had a chance to dash through and make it back to the column before being killed by the many dwagons there, and that chance depended on factors Ansom - and Vinnie - couldn't know.

He left the wounded and damaged warlords and dwagons completely unsupported. They were then croaked, entirely predictably. He regularly leaves weak units unsupported and bad stuff happens to them.

And look at the chain of events that led to that outcome. Jillian had to break Wanda's enchantment - which Wanda assured him she wouldn't. Then she had to luck into finding the right hex. And Ansom and Vinnie had to have enough move left to make it to the lake. There were very few units which could engage them there, and it took all of them but the two lower-level Jetstone warlords to actually win, and it was close anyway.

Putting all the dwagons in one hex had ZERO chance of taking out Ansom. And if not for Stanley, they would have done just that, and very likely been able to win without having to blow up the mountain.

[Nnelg]

I think everyone should stop arguing about the merits of Parson's individual command decisions.

First off, the loss of troops by itself is NOT a sign of poor decisions. To the contrary, sometimes it is a direct symptom of success on the battlefield.

It is an established fact that any successful breakthrough attempt will suffer casualties -but not just at the spearhead. No, rather counter-attacks on reserve troops from the flanks can cause just as much if not more damage. The farther forwards one pushes, the more exposes one's flanks are; so in this way greater success leads directly to greater casualties.

But as long as these flankers can't stop or surround the spearhead units, cutting off needed supplies or reinforcements, then any losses sustained in these raids are 'acceptable'; a good commander will already have factored them in when calculating expected casualties for the operation.

The quality that separates a good commander from a great one (at least on an operational level) does not stem directly from minimizing these losses, but from advancing as far as one can without becoming overextended. Think of a game of Blackjack: a cautious individual will fail because he stops too soon for fear of going too far, whereas a good player takes risks (and inevitably suffers losses).


So a good commander WILL leave openings for his opponent. He has to. In order to be strong in the areas that are important, he must neglect those that don't matter as much. The trick is to minimize these openings, put them in places the opponent is weaker, and keep them on the defensive so that they're not paying enough attention.

Of course, the opponent (usually) has competent leadership as well, so every time you try something you're rolling the dice. And hey, sometimes you roll a one.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ok, now that that's settled, let's get on to the actual discussion.

I don't believe there is any one strategy that is guaranteed to defeat Parson, he's too adaptive. We'd need just as fluid an approach to best him.


So far GK's been using mainly Blitzkrieg-style tactics. However, they've managed to negate many of not most of Blitzing's natural weaknesses.

Usually, the limiting factor to a Blitz's rate of advance is how fast the infantry can move up to keep a hold on captured turf. However, with Decryption Wanda can just raise the previous owner's garrison to do the job instead.

That brings us to Blitzkrieg's other shortcoming, enemy strongpoints. There's a number of ways to handle these, but thankfully Erfworld's mechanics help out the defenders a bit in that they don't need lines of supply. The presumed strategy of GK is to bypass the majority of enemy defenses by taking the garrison quickly from the air.


The RCCII has a few great advantages of its own, though. First off, Charlie. His 'Dish gives him complete (or nearly so) intel on enemy dispositions and troop movements. Such can not be said for GK, who's strategic intelligence has proven lacking of late.

Second, Jillian. Right now Faq is a pint-size powerhouse, and a fresh one to boot. While GK has already committed the majority of its forces, at the moment Jillian has to opportunity deploy her forces wherever she (read: Charlie) thinks they'll do the most good.

Finally, the GK offensive has begun to loose steam. They've taken so much land in so little time, and need to consolidate. Until an effective supply chain is set up, Decryption will be the task force's ONLY source of reinforcements.


Except for the Decryption factor, the situation is nearly identical to that of the Eastern Front in early '43. The Germans (GK) have started to reach their limits, and have lost their momentum; especially at Stalingrad (Spacerock). Their strategic intelligence was wanting while the Russians' (RCCII) wasn't (Misty croaked vs. Charlie's Arkendish). The Russians have finally produced tanks in sufficient quantities and qualities to counter those of Germans (Faq's Gwiffons vs GK's Dwagons).

Therefore, if GK continues with these same Blitzkrieg tactics, I would advise modeling a strategy based off that of the Russians at Kursk.

Jetstone would conduct a determined defence at their capital in this scenario, reinforced by the army of Transylvito, who's many fliers would counter GK's areal advantage, while the army of Faq conducted raids on targets too far away for Wanda to decrypt the casualties at.


However, we can assume that Parson has read up on the battle of Kursk. He may still go for Jetstone, as there is no guarantee of the defence's success; but if I were him I'd strike out in a different direction.

This is where Charlie comes in. With the 'Dish he can keep track of GK's movements, and direct the maneuvering of RCCII's armies. A scorched earth tactic can be executed wherever the army's going next, while forces raiding GK's back field can be withdrawn the instant something threatening comes their way.

In this way, GK is 'starved' of the advantage Decryption gives them, until finally Parson is forced to stop and consolidate, giving away the strategic initiative, or take a heavy gamble with a siege against one of the RCCII capitols.


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EDIT:
Of course, this is a purely military strategy. It can and should be supplemented by concurrent political and/or psychological efforts.

But that's not in my area of competence, so I'm going to leave the possibility open without comment.

[Ytaker]

Yes, Parson used one. That counts, but not as an example against him. I'm referring to times he left himself open like this.

Since he uses the tactic he should be aware he should defend against the same tactic.

Jill used it to take out Ansom, who was left with no fliers to defend him. Even a single dwagon would have been able to screen him and let the archers take out some foes, retaining his massive bonus for those troops.

First off, Parson was not at that time chief warlord - Ansom was. Second, it was only possible due to Kingworld, which is on par with the volcano trap for unforseeability.

Ansom was chief warlord but Wanda led their forces due to being the owner of all decrypted, and we were repeatedly reminded that she listens to almost everything Parson says religiously.

Surprises regularly happen in Erfworld. It didn't only happen because of Kingworld, it only happened due to kingworld and poor planning. If you have a ton of dwagons you can spare one or two to protect your most powerful units

The archons were summoned to defeat Wanda, who launched an unsupported attack on Wanda. More understandable though, as GK had nothing in that area.

1) I trust you mean Ansom.
2) Charlie was neutral at that point, and had allowed Wanda to pass unimpeded through airspace - escorted and with a stack of unipegataurs and a mid-level warlord, no less!
3) If Wanda had finished Ansom instead of diving for the pliers, he wouldn't have been able to hire the archons

Yes, error of mine.

Trusting Charlie to be neutral is a bad idea.

Ansom is a high level warlord, very tough, taking him out in one blow is hard.

Hmm. Although thinking about it...

If I had been around, I would have placed some ground units, maybe my dirtamancer around, plus some troops. Any archer units would be close by. Commit every capable unit to the kill, it's the most important job. If there had been a single archer nearby or stabber he would likely be dead.

Maybe see if Sizemore can do any ranged attacks. Even limited shockamancy would be helpful.

They had no fliers in the nearby area, but they surely had some other units that could have helped Wanda take down Ansom.

GK is known to have a massive flier force, so they couldn't stop GK ransacking their outlying cities without splitting up.

Was it so known at that time? They had a handful of dwagons survive the battle of the pass, and one popped in the city after, and they could have popped maybe a handful more. That they had so many fliers was a largely unforseeable strategic secret.

They knew they had a dwagon relay, so they knew GK had a reasonably large force of dwagons.

http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/ ... mission_40

Their scouts would have some details of what was happening.

http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/ ... mission_39

As anything that entered their airspace would die by archon.

They really should have some idea.

As for the dwagon donut - don't forget that in order to pull off a win vs the weakened dwagons, Jetstone had to leave most of its top units in the open, completely exposed. The remaining dwagons could have killed them off next turn very easily. It was like leaving one of your two connected, not-pinned rooks threatened by the opposing queen. When she takes one, GO FOR IT! Stanley's the one who made that a true mistake by not taking advantage.

Yes, they could have probably defeated them. It does depend on Charlie of course, Charlie can often throw a spanner into the works. They were the queen, vulnerable and easy to take out. But Parson knows that Stanley is a fool, and doesn't agree to logical things. Stanley main goal isn't necessarily their main goal. Consequently, he should have made some effort to explain this to Stanley before the blow hit.

No. They could not have blown their way out of the trap. They had a chance to dash through and make it back to the column before being killed by the many dwagons there, and that chance depended on factors Ansom - and Vinnie - couldn't know.

I agree with you on everything, I was using blow through as a synonym for dash through. You are completely right.

And look at the chain of events that led to that outcome. Jillian had to break Wanda's enchantment - which Wanda assured him she wouldn't. Then she had to luck into finding the right hex. And Ansom and Vinnie had to have enough move left to make it to the lake. There were very few units which could engage them there, and it took all of them but the two lower-level Jetstone warlords to actually win, and it was close anyway.

Yes, it was very close.

http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/TBFGK_124

Parson Gotti: But, y'know... he's doing the same to you. And you can't be strong everywhere. So you fall back where he's stronger, and sometimes you do lose. But you roll with it.

Yes, you plan. Okay?

But the enemy won't follow your plan.

So the trick is to be fluid, hit him on the fly, define his choices... watch for opportunity, like when he boops up.

I quote Nnelg.

So a good commander WILL leave openings for his opponent. He has to. In order to be strong in the areas that are important, he must neglect those that don't matter as much. The trick is to minimize these openings, put them in places the opponent is weaker, and keep them on the defensive so that they're not paying enough attention.

Nnelg says something Parson, doesn't minimize those openings. In a blitzkreig your tanks are always vulnerable to infantry assault as they are far ahead of the main line, you should make sure they are well defended if possible. There are limits of course, but a little extra defence is helpful.

If he had added one or two more undamaged dwagons to that damaged group it wouldn't have made much difference to the ambush, but would have made a lot of difference to the battle. They could have taken some fire from the archons, held off Ansom and the bat warlord. A tiny change to his plan would have made him win. He would have minimized that opening.

You defend your weaker units with stronger units.

Putting all the dwagons in one hex had ZERO chance of taking out Ansom. And if not for Stanley, they would have done just that, and very likely been able to win without having to blow up the mountain.

I was not arguing to put all the dwagons in one hex. I am sorry for giving you that misconception with my poor phrasing.

Planning for your leader's stupidity is part of the game. It's a major part of roleplaying. You may get dealt a bad hand but you have to work with it. You have to make a turd smell like a rose to them, convince them that what you are doing is a good idea. Parson can't deal well with emotional people.

[Nueamin]

Much of what I am reading seems to be from the perspective of hindsight. Many possibilities that could have occurred have been removed from the conversation simply because they did not happen. Then there are many rather large assumptions that if we move GK's units around differently that the enemy would still have made the exact same move.

If I have eight soldiers and I place them stacked together to lend each other the most support possible and then they are wiped out because of a much larger and stronger force coming through I have apparently made a mistake. The act of having those troops there however can have such a huge impact on a battle even if it leads to all of their deaths. The troops may have made the larger force spend a single extra move to wipe my stack out which may place the larger force without enough move to reach a strategic point further into my territory. If I were to look at that battle in hindsight I might say I should have put only 4 soldiers in that hex stacked but the truth is me having only 4 soldiers there the enemy may have decided to ignore it because of it being under the threshold of threat. So any changes made in hindsight are really impossible because we can't know how that would effect the movement/deployment of other sides and their decisions could very well be different and invalidates our assumptions that if we do B instead of A then other sides will still do exactly C but the enemy really could do D, E or W.

The above example is just one example but making big or small changes in positioning or timing affects a lot of factors that one cannot account for completely.

[Nnelg]

Nueamin speaks the truth of it.

Surprises regularly happen in Erfworld. It didn't only happen because of Kingworld, it only happened due to kingworld and poor planning. If you have a ton of dwagons you can spare one or two to protect your most powerful units

You could, but should you? Determining how much force to allocate between attack and defence, that's a value judgement -and Parson's call to make. You thing he should have allocated more to defence, and hindsight concurs, but that doesn't mean Parson made a bad decision. He decided to take a bit more risk for some more potential payoff, and that's a legitimate decision. Indeed, it might even have been the best decision from his perspective (the one which had the most optimal configuration of risk and reward -which is another value judgement).

Nnelg says something Parson, doesn't minimize those openings.

Are you saying this because you see a way Parson could have better minimized that opening with the forces not needed elsewhere, or because someone happened to see it and hit it?

If he had added one or two more undamaged dwagons to that damaged group it wouldn't have made much difference to the ambush, but would have made a lot of difference to the battle. They could have taken some fire from the archons, held off Ansom and the bat warlord. A tiny change to his plan would have made him win. He would have minimized that opening.

First off, it could have made a difference to the ambush. If he didn't have as many dwagons on the hexes closer to the columns, Ansom might have decided to attack one of those hexes instead, and therefore would have had enough move left over to escape. Secondly, one or two full-health dwagons would not have made as big a difference as you suppose. Jillian by herself can handle one, and the archons take the other. After that, it's the same situation as before. Parson probably knew that if anyone got to that hex, he'd be booped. So he committed his forces where they'd do more good, namely the ambush.

You defend your weaker units with stronger units.

Not necessarily. Also valid is "you keep your enemy so preoccupied with your stronger units they leave your weaker ones alone, and therefore you don't need to defend them heavily".

[s-dub]

I think that the key thing to remember here is that Parson was summoned to Erfworld not knowing any of the rules, the players, or the game. He essentially came in with no understanding of anything. In one of the text updates, Vurp comments that Parson asked him 10 things that a warlord should know in a conversation. This is after the battle for Gobwin Knob, so it just goes to show how complex Erfworld really is.

If I were going up against Parson, I would do my best to beat him by not fighting. I would also delay any major combat in hopes of having Stanley replace him. I would offer bounties on his scouts and or try to set traps for them to make his progress slow as he worries about surprises.

[Ytaker]

Much of what I am reading seems to be from the perspective of hindsight. Many possibilities that could have occurred have been removed from the conversation simply because they did not happen. Then there are many rather large assumptions that if we move GK's units around differently that the enemy would still have made the exact same move.

All of the moves I mentioned are a good idea without the benefit of hindsight. They are obvious principles that someone with no knowledge of erfworld should know. Hypothetically you can imagine many things if you so desire. The practical result in erfworld was 7 dwagons being croaked and 3 warlords. Almost half of their dwagon force.

You could, but should you? Determining how much force to allocate between attack and defence, that's a value judgement -and Parson's call to make. You thing he should have allocated more to defence, and hindsight concurs, but that doesn't mean Parson made a bad decision. He decided to take a bit more risk for some more potential payoff, and that's a legitimate decision. Indeed, it might even have been the best decision from his perspective (the one which had the most optimal configuration of risk and reward -which is another value judgement).

Well personally, I'd have left one or two of the back stacks weaker, so that Ansom could easily bust through them. Definitely the back hex, maybe another depending on how units were arranged.

Do you remember the arrangement they had?
3d*
3d t 3d
5d 5d
5d

Enemy lines.

Open is for open, t is for trap, d is for dwagon. The enemy fought through the star hex, killing three dwagons, and then found the centre hex empty. They couldn't get back to their lines through the five dwagon hexes. Personally I'd have not wanted to needlessly lose those three dwagons, so I would have taken a dwagon from one or two of the weak hexes and left them vulnerable to attack, stacking them with the wounded dwagons.

2d
3d t 3d
5d 5d
5d

Parson calculated that the chance of victory for Jill was 61%. It was very close. Another unwounded dwagon would have tipped the scales massively, and even if it went wrong they'd still have lost the same amount of forces.

http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/ ... FGK_66.jpg

First off, it could have made a difference to the ambush. If he didn't have as many dwagons on the hexes closer to the columns, Ansom might have decided to attack one of those hexes instead, and therefore would have had enough move left over to escape. Secondly, one or two full-health dwagons would not have made as big a difference as you suppose. Jillian by herself can handle one, and the archons take the other. After that, it's the same situation as before. Parson probably knew that if anyone got to that hex, he'd be booped. So he committed his forces where they'd do more good, namely the ambush.

Parson himself calculated that the battle would be close, and in the comic I showed you Jill would have died if Ansom didn't save her. It would have been a much more costly victory, even had Ansom won. They even had some chance of taking out Ansom, isolated and weak.

Also, three of the hexes were optional, they only needed the 5d hexes to hold. He left weak dwagons in the last hex to draw Ansom to that hex, there's no reason they couldn't have repeated that by leaving one less dwagon. Even if Ansom didn't take the bait, they'd still be able to kill the enemy's siege next turn with their warlords.

Not necessarily. Also valid is "you keep your enemy so preoccupied with your stronger units they leave your weaker ones alone, and therefore you don't need to defend them heavily".

He didn't do that, the 5d hexes were too strong to punch through.

Plus I checked the comics. Jill had a lot of air forces which she split up to find the enemy dwagons. Five gwiffons. It's not surprising she found them.

[Nnelg]

All of the moves I mentioned are a good idea without the benefit of hindsight. They are obvious principles that someone with no knowledge of erfworld should know. Hypothetically you can imagine many things if you so desire. The practical result in erfworld was 7 dwagons being croaked and 3 warlords. Almost half of their dwagon force.

What you suggest is not a bad move, but neither is what Parson did. There are reasons for both moves, and each has differing risk and reward. The modification to this plan you make is an attempt to stymie the risk a bit in exchange for decreased reward. (It would weaken the ambush. Even if you took the one or two dwagons from the strongest stacks, where Ansom isn't expected to attack, doing so would decrease the chance of croaking him if he tried to escape.)

Parson simply chose greater reward at the cost of greater risk. This was not a foolhardy exchange either, though. One or two dwagons simply would not have made that much a difference, certainly not enough to make the decision obvious. They were over a lake, and the RCCI had only a limited number of fliers. Before Ansom and Vinny showed up, Jillian and the archons were definitely having a hard time of things. If they were to be the only attackers, then -seeing as they'd have to find the dwagons to begin with- the total risk from just them is fairly small (after taking into account the chance of finding them in the first place). Small enough that it would potentially be worth it to allocate more dwagons to the trap instead (especially seeing as there were three warlords in the hex). Whereas after Ansom showed up, the battle was a curb stomp -you'd've needed a lot more than one or two dwagons at that point.

Well personally, I'd have left one or two of the back stacks weaker, so that Ansom could easily bust through them. Definitely the back hex, maybe another depending on how units were arranged.

That's your choice. Doesn't mean you're wrong, doesn't mean Parson's wrong, doesn't mean either of you is wrong.

Do you remember the arrangement they had?

From front to back, it went - 6 : 5/5 : 4/4 : 3
(third and sixth panels)

Personally I'd have not wanted to needlessly lose those three dwagons, so I would have taken a dwagon from one or two of the weak hexes and left them vulnerable to attack, stacking them with the wounded dwagons.

Your choice. Parson thought better to spend these dwagons to inflict damage on the attackers, and to avoid (more) risk of looking too easy.

Parson calculated that the chance of victory for Jill was 61%. It was very close. Another unwounded dwagon would have tipped the scales massively, and even if it went wrong they'd still have lost the same amount of forces.

You forget to include the odds of them finding that hex in the first place. Let's be generous and put it at 10%. Now that's a 6% risk to mitigate. Another dwagon or two might reduce that to 2%, which I think is being generous -especially if you're more worried about casualties than 'winning' the battle. Already the difference is less than the usual critical failure chance (on a d20, at least).

Oh, and what are the odds of Jillian and the archons being stacked together, instead of being split up to cover more ground? Let's take a wild guess at 50%; so now those additional dwagons are reducing the risk from 3% to 1%. Hardly significant by any measure,

But let's not forget that Jillian also has to break Wanda's spell. Let's give her a two-thirds chance of that. So it's 2% to 1% (.5 rounded up) now. Hardly even worth it, wouldn't you agree?

Parson himself calculated that the battle would be close, and in the comic I showed you Jill would have died if Ansom didn't save her. It would have been a much more costly victory, even had Ansom won. They even had some chance of taking out Ansom, isolated and weak.

They still did, but Stanley squandered it. But a good point on the battle being close already, I missed that one on my previous posts.

Also, three of the hexes were optional, they only needed the 5d hexes to hold. He left weak dwagons in the last hex to draw Ansom to that hex, there's no reason they couldn't have repeated that by leaving one less dwagon. Even if Ansom didn't take the bait, they'd still be able to kill the enemy's siege next turn with their warlords.

No, if he left the back hex open Vinny would have just flown a bat into the center and seen that they weren't there.

Not necessarily. Also valid is "you keep your enemy so preoccupied with your stronger units they leave your weaker ones alone, and therefore you don't need to defend them heavily".

He didn't do that, the 5d hexes were too strong to punch through.

No, he did do that; if you consider the unwounded dwagons the "stronger units" and his wounded ones the "weaker ones". He minimized the opening not by reducing the risk of losing a battle in that hex, but by reducing the risk that such a battle would occur in the first place.

I was thinking of something else when I wrote that, though, so I'll admit it's not the best analogy I could have chosen.

Plus I checked the comics. Jill had a lot of air forces which she split up to find the enemy dwagons. Five gwiffons. It's not surprising she found them.

Given that there are dozens of hexes to search; and that if she split her forces she wouldn't be able to bring them all to bear on the dwagons once they were found; and especially that between Wanda's suggestion and her natural ego, she wasn't even trying to find the dwagons; it's nothing less than a minor miracle that she stumbled upon their location as she did.

[Ytaker]

[quote="Nnelg"]

http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/ ... FGK_65.jpg

15 dwagons in there. 3 others croaked, 21 in the five hex arrangement. So a bit under half of their force croaked in one move, and their warlords dead too.

http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/ ... FGK_61.jpg

Gives a good picture of the hex arrangement they had, 555333. You can also see the weakened dwagon hex, two hexes away from the main force. Very close, very easy to find. Given that she was flying directly to Ansom's aid, very predictable she'd find them too.

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F063.jpg

Jill deliberately sent off the lower move units and stayed with the archons because she hated the lower move units. The chance of her being with archons was 100%

http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F067.jpg

The archons gave some free help, which was almost certain to allow her to break free.

Also, if the dwagons had been strong enough to engage Jill and win then Ansom wouldn't have came to help.

There are a lot of factors making losing the dwagons likely.

Neither of our arguments means much. I believe that leaving half your dwagon force unprotected to croak is a bad idea, you believe it's a reasonable risk. There's no way to prove either of us right or wrong.

Regardless though, it's obvious Parson is very high risk. A good person who could see that he liked high risk attacks could easily use that against him.

[Lamech]

http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/ ... FGK_65.jpg

15 dwagons in there. 3 others croaked, 21 in the five hex arrangement. So a bit under half of their force croaked in one move, and their warlords dead too.

Shouldn't have mattered. There were reserve dwagons at GK. Parson could have flown out a warlord, and repeated the strike. With a few more dwagons in fact. The siege would have been scrubbed.

The archons gave some free help, which was almost certain to allow her to break free.

Parson failed to predict that the archons would hand out free help. His plans also didn't account for the lookamancers in the MK telling Ansom the location of the dwagons either. This isn't exactly something he should have reasonably planned for. You should allow for some give in your plans, but this wasn't exactly likely.

There are a lot of factors making losing the dwagons likely.

The things that needed to happen to lose the dwagons
1) Jillian finds them. 50% chance. (There were two equally short paths to Ansom.)
2) The archons need to provide free magical defense assistance. Also provide it at such a time as to allow Jillian to lead the expedition, but still attack the dwagons. Low, but for the sake of argument assume its high.
3) She needs to break the spell and not get hit in the face by the backlash. 50% chance. We're being pretty generous here.
4) They need to win the fight. Probably pretty high if Ansom comes, but only 60% if he doesn't.

So Parson's plan if Stanley wasn't a moron had either a 75% chance of ending the siege at 3 dwagon cost to GK, and even if they hit that 25% chance still would have handed the battle to GK at the cost of just under half the dwagons. The end result should have been an wipe of major airforce assest (Jillians, Vinny and Ansom) and GK acquiring the pliers and Ansom's corpse. Even the worst possible outcome (22 dwagons for the siege) would have been a GK victory. The fact that Stanley mucked it up is hardly Parson's fault. He isn't Maggie he can't simply control the Tool.

[Nnelg]

http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/index.php/File:TBFGK_61.jpg

Gives a good picture of the hex arrangement they had, 555333. You can also see the weakened dwagon hex, two hexes away from the main force. Very close, very easy to find. Given that she was flying directly to Ansom's aid, very predictable she'd find them too.

Look again, I see three little brown splotches that are easy to miss, even under scrutiny. They're also shown (still somewhat indistinctly) here.

Besides, the total number of reserve dwagons was 27 according to this.
3+3+3+5+5+5=24; 3+4+4+5+5+6=27.

And don't forget, she'd have to actually go through the hex with the dwagons in order to find them.

Jill deliberately sent off the lower move units and stayed with the archons because she hated the lower move units. The chance of her being with archons was 100%

May I direct you to an informational page?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias

Besides, there's no way Parson understood her that well from just Wanda's descriptions.

Also, if the dwagons had been strong enough to engage Jill and win then Ansom wouldn't have came to help.

No, he would be even more likely to come to her rescue than otherwise.

There are a lot of factors making losing the dwagons likely.

And there are just as many if not more making it unlikely. You're cherry picking.

Neither of our arguments means much. I believe that leaving half your dwagon force unprotected to croak is a bad idea, you believe it's a reasonable risk. There's no way to prove either of us right or wrong.

I was not intending to prove you wrong unequivocally, nor did I think it possible to do so. I argue for the point of persuading you to my point of view through the use of logic; or, if my own arguments prove inferior to yours, come myself into a more correct conclusion.

Regardless though, it's obvious Parson is very high risk. A good person who could see that he liked high risk attacks could easily use that against him.

I'll agree, he seems to me to be a natural high roller.

But every time he takes a great risks, it is because the reward is just as great. And yet never have I seen him take a gamble that he could not recover from losing -save in the endgame of tBfGK, when he had no option but to risk it all.

It would be a tricky affair to take advantage of this quality, to say the least. Whatever you do, you'll have to be as willing to take these risks as Parson is.

The things that needed to happen to lose the dwagons
1) Jillian finds them. 50% chance. (There were two equally short paths to Ansom.)

[/quote][/quote]
Actually, the odds of her finding them are probably much less than 50%, since you can't see into adjacent hexes in Erfworld (unless you stop to peek, which Jillian certainly wasn't going to stop to do).

[Lamech]

Actually, the odds of her finding them are probably much less than 50%, since you can't see into adjacent hexes in Erfworld (unless you stop to peek, which Jillian certainly wasn't going to stop to do).

Yeah actually you're probably right. Assuming Jillian travels in paths that have the minimum number of turns she has a 50% chance. If she travels in a random path it would probably be a lot less. (Although it could still be 50%.) So it would be better to say that Jillian has an at most 50% chance of finding the dwagons.) It could have been as low as 4%ish, but we really can't be sure. So at worst this plan had a 25% of winning at the cost of 9 dwagons. (Jillian's plan for a punch through gets another 6 assuming Ansom's cooler head doesn't prevail). The point is though, regardless of the cost 22, 9 or 3 dwagons is should have been a win.

[drachefly]

When you're in a very bad position, taking high-payoff strategies is a good move, even those that come with high risks. A medium payoff simply won't be enough to get your boop off the line.

Parson knows this. When he's in a position of equality or superiority, he won't need to do this.