Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) – Episode 038

[partywhipple]

A. I assume the doll is a thing, not a unit. It's an item created by a dollomancer. It's like the hats they use to send messages. I believe that you do have to pick up an item to claim it, which is why when the pliers dropped Wanda went for them instead of just assuming they were GKs automatically. So the dollomancer who made it could still use it until Wanda claimed it or destroyed it.

B. It doesn't surprise me AT ALL that they could be tricked into eating poisoned provisions. We know a few things and one of them is that sides can't choose what type of caster they get (exceptions are made with certain special units). They get a caster instead of a royal randomly, right? So there could be wars across Erf for thousands of turns with sides starting and being destroyed without ever seeing some of the caster types. And even if they DO see a rare caster type, who says their leader lets them use their power to it's fullest? We have seen a perfect example of a leader wasting the talents of his casters in the leader of Jetstone only using his dollomancer in that last fight. How long did he have him?

C. The food may have killed them but I think a group wide attack like that more likely makes them sleep through a turn. If it's like D&D anything which disturbs them will wake them up. And it's not that powerful considering you have to get your enemy to eat the food. I had much more of an issue with the hippiemancer killing Wanda's brother with a poison attack when attacks were turned off. I assume because it was the next day they hadn't actually recast the anti violence spell yet. still, felt a little lame...

D. I had no idea people thought Jillian humping her friend was some type of spell. We already know she's a horndog, why does it need to be a magic attack?

[Kreistor]

Haffaton still has to have units close to WRECD in order to take advantage. They'll all heal at start of Turn, so Haffaton has only one Turn to find them.

[drachefly]

About why poison isn't used like this all the time - rations are normally something you eat, right? And you live in the city, right? And if you label them 'poison rations, don't eat', then it's not going to do much good, will it? And if you don't label it, then your people are going to eat it and get messed up, right?

So it would probably be a lot more trouble than it's worth, for any normally-defended city.

[effataigus]

Called it! Boom da yada.

Nice, Lamech! I think a couple of people suspected this (myself not included), but you even got the specifics right.

Nice to know I'm not the only person with an abiding fear of mannequins.

[BrotherRool]

For why they trust the rations, I think people are underestimating the creativity dearth in of Erf, from what we can see most sides have a strict hierarchical structure with lots of them having strong inclinations towards conservatism/traditions/honour and when a side gets a new idea (like FAQ and bubble kingdoms) they tend to base their whole strategy round that.

So when you think about that, the fact that it's an option only available to large kingdoms who have florists and don't have strategies of defending their borders with normal units and that most of the royal kingdoms who do fit those criteria would also consider it too underhand to think about, it really doesn't feel like a surprise. Plus the clever sides, like Charlescomm tend to have been forced to be clever by their small size and wouldn't be able to put this into affect.

I mean people never even considered breaking from standard dollamancy even though Ace was actively campaigning for them to do so. Why would a florist be allowed to try their crazy poisoning scheme?


----

What I don't like about this plan is that it requires Haffaton to let the side raize the city. It doesn't seem worth while unless they've got a ridiculous amount of cities they can afford to lose. If a really small force took their city, what can they get in return which is worth the loss?

[Whispri]

So assuming Jillian's awake but her followers are gone, is there anyway she could hope to escape? Hiding seems like a non starter... unless she can hide at least one Gwiffon (thus making it look possible that she left her soldiers for dead) Maybe disbanding the non-hideable Gwiffons would convince Haffaton that Jillian was in a different Hex?

What I don't like about this plan is that it requires Haffaton to let the side raize the city. It doesn't seem worth while unless they've got a ridiculous amount of cities they can afford to lose. If a really small force took their city, what can they get in return which is worth the loss?

For a start the destruction of the City wasn't preordained in the case of its capture, that was just bad luck from Haffaton's point of view. It's not a great loss thanks to the diminishing returns thing. For that matter they may have magical means of easing the replacement cost.

As for what they've gained, well they've gained the defeat of an army. The only striking force of a neighbouring, warlike and hostile Capital Side has gone, or is about to go, the way of the Auroch. They've gained casus belli against that Side if it matters to them. Potentially they've gained three Uncroaked Warlords plus a small body of infantry to replace Diecast's garrison. On top of that, they've gained a lead on a bubble Side that lurks within their Domain, if Jillian goes in the bag, they'll have a source of information on that Side, possibly maps as well. One last thing, if they capture all or part of the WRECD, they'll have a chance to Turn them, which would be catastrophic for Faq (mounts excepting). They have a Capital Side on the ropes for the price of one small City.

[the_tick_rules]

Course we dunno if Haffaton planned this trap for them specifically or if this is a common tactic they use for some cities. Might not even be a common thing.

[rackhir]

I wonder if Wanda scared them via the doll for her own purposes. I can think of at least two motives:

1. She may have realized that she can use Jillian to destroy Haffaton (which is her ultimate goal, after all).
2. She saw Jillian through the doll spell and thinks she's hot and doesn't want to see her croaked.

Both of the above could be true (and we already know Wanda digs Jillian). Creeping Jillian out with the doll might have been the best way to guarantee she's not in the city when the poison kicks in.

[Digitality]

Yeah I surprised about "not one" waking up. We know Jillian survives, so is she included in the everyone? If so, then they must survive. I suspect the poison is actually a sleeping drug, and Haffaton is gonna capture them.
In that case though, it doesn't make much sense to scare them into running from the city :/
Actually, I can answer my own question. I presume that Wanda was able to see their stats when she used the Doll's eyes, so she knows their Move. If she scares them into running, she know that they'll use up all their Move going in a straight line, which significantly narrows down the hexes that her forces will have to look for them.

On the contrary, a straight line increases the maximum range of possible coverage on a hex map.

[OneHugeTuck]

About why poison isn't used like this all the time - rations are normally something you eat, right? And you live in the city, right? And if you label them 'poison rations, don't eat', then it's not going to do much good, will it? And if you don't label it, then your people are going to eat it and get messed up, right?

So it would probably be a lot more trouble than it's worth, for any normally-defended city.

If the plan is to leave a city undefended and poison it, then the side would know about the poison, and not eat the trap.

If you have a cabin in the woods and you leave a poisoned apple in it to kill the rats for the month you're away, when you come back do you eat the apple?

[0beron]

On the contrary, a straight line increases the maximum range of possible coverage on a hex map.

Yes and no. If you know a unit's move, but not where it is going or how far, then you have an entire range to search for it, up to and including the maximum range going in a straight line. If however you guarantee the the unit WILL move it's max speed in a straight line, then you're just left with a ring of hexes around the city rather than a filled-in circle. Fewer hexes to search, and on top of that you could narrow down the choices further by picking the hexes that could be reached using a path with good cover (since Haffaton must have this area mapped)

[OneHugeTuck]

If left rations can be poisoned, and if spies/losing sides active stuff is still active/spying when a city changes hands, then I would think this would be common knowledge, and then it seems to me that NO ONE WOULD EAT RATIONS FROM A LOSING SIDE and would know to look out for things like weird spooky eyed mannequins and spies and left over active threats.

But then if nobody trusted rations from a losing side, why would anyone bother to poison them? Speaking in absolutes like this leads to circular logic; the truth is more complex than any hasty generalization can capture. To me it appears that there's little reason why there should be any more or less suspicion of poison and bugs in captured supplies and rooms on Erf than there is for such things on Earth.

It'd better be poisoned, as opposed to the effect of a spell. If a spell can survive the loss of a city and change of ownership to the conquering side, then nobody would guard their minor cities, they'd just leave something tricky and deadly for whoever conquers it.

If everyone did it, it wouldn't work. The way it works is that one side gets away with it, but then once the secret's out the effect becomes a lot less until everyone's forgotten it, and even then someone from some new generation still has to come up with the "new" idea.

And even if it is the effect of a spell, and even if direct damage spells can also last after cities change hands, once the enemy finds a way to defuse, remotely trigger, or avoid it, there's little point in continuing to place more.

1. Poison could possibly be a manufactured item. (Or whatever the term is that Twolls have a special of).
2. Common knowledge that rations can be poisoned and everybody poisoning their rations all the time, are two different things entirely. That was your absolute, not mine.
3. In Viet Nam, both sides at left poisoned rations laying around, hoping to snare the hungry/unaware. It happens, and Viet Nam wasn't the only instance in history when it happened, not even close. It's not hugely outside the box thinking.


Question: Do unmanned cities pop rations? If there's a storeroom but no new ration popping, poisoning the storeroom would be an easy thing (new rations pop for the units if/when they return).

[Digitality]

On the contrary, a straight line increases the maximum range of possible coverage on a hex map.

Yes and no. If you know a unit's move, but not where it is going or how far, then you have an entire range to search for it, up to and including the maximum range going in a straight line. If however you guarantee the the unit WILL move it's max speed in a straight line, then you're just left with a ring of hexes around the city rather than a filled-in circle. Fewer hexes to search, and on top of that you could narrow down the choices further by picking the hexes that could be reached using a path with good cover (since Haffaton must have this area mapped)

Fair point, and one I overlooked. One could also further narrow it down by assuming they're fleeing towards your borders, and not further inland. At least to start the search.

However, do you think the people of Erfworld have the critical thinking skills for that sort of process of elimination?

I could see why, it's more tactical and directly applicable to their world, rather than the abstract rule bending that Parson pulls off.

[0beron]

Yeah I would say so. A similar example would be the way Jillian and Transylvito knew there was only one way into the Valley of FAQ, so they waited there to fight Stanley. Its not exactly the same, but it shows that they're accustomed to thinking strategically about the terrain.

[rackhir]

On the contrary, a straight line increases the maximum range of possible coverage on a hex map.

Yes and no. If you know a unit's move, but not where it is going or how far, then you have an entire range to search for it, up to and including the maximum range going in a straight line. If however you guarantee the the unit WILL move it's max speed in a straight line, then you're just left with a ring of hexes around the city rather than a filled-in circle. Fewer hexes to search, and on top of that you could narrow down the choices further by picking the hexes that could be reached using a path with good cover (since Haffaton must have this area mapped)

I think this "scare them into a straight line" argument is a bit of a stretch. Haffaton's hope was probably that they would eat the poisoned rations before they leave and pass out in the city instead of somewhere else.

I think the dummy was Wanda trying to scare them into leaving so that they wouldn't pass out in the city and get croaked later. Remember, she wants to destroy Haffaton, and she may have decided that Jillian would be a useful tool to make that happen.

[0beron]

Either seems possible/likely to me. It's hard to know Wanda's emotional state at present so we're not sure if she is still bitter, of if she drank the koolaid, or what.

[rackhir]

Either seems possible/likely to me. It's hard to know Wanda's emotional state at present so we're not sure if she is still bitter, of if she drank the koolaid, or what.

Fair enough. However, we do know Wanda ends up in Faq, and we can be at least reasonably certain that Haffaton gets destroyed at some point before the start of the Battle for Gobwin Knob. From a narrative standpoint this seems like a reasonable place to get that ball rolling.

[0beron]

Agreed. I just see the possibility that her turning will be a reluctant one if she has drank the koolaid.

EDIT: The fact that Wanda is clearly still exploring different magics (but no longer does so in the GK era) makes me suspect that this curiosity of hers was encouraged by Olive, and that something which happens ruins that.

[drachefly]

About why poison isn't used like this all the time - rations are normally something you eat, right? And you live in the city, right? And if you label them 'poison rations, don't eat', then it's not going to do much good, will it? And if you don't label it, then your people are going to eat it and get messed up, right?

So it would probably be a lot more trouble than it's worth, for any normally-defended city.

If the plan is to leave a city undefended and poison it, then the side would know about the poison, and not eat the trap.

If you have a cabin in the woods and you leave a poisoned apple in it to kill the rats for the month you're away, when you come back do you eat the apple?

I'm explaining why this hasn't come up all the time. Normally, sides don't leave cities completely undefended. Haffaton is an exception. This makes this case exceptional, explaining why it doesn't come up all the time, but did now.

[Housellama]

1. Poison could possibly be a manufactured item. (Or whatever the term is that Twolls have a special of).
2. Common knowledge that rations can be poisoned and everybody poisoning their rations all the time, are two different things entirely. That was your absolute, not mine.
3. In Viet Nam, both sides at left poisoned rations laying around, hoping to snare the hungry/unaware. It happens, and Viet Nam wasn't the only instance in history when it happened, not even close. It's not hugely outside the box thinking.


Question: Do unmanned cities pop rations? If there's a storeroom but no new ration popping, poisoning the storeroom would be an easy thing (new rations pop for the units if/when they return).

1. We know from earlier in the story (from Wanda's POV) that poison falls under Flower Power. Makes sense, since we've heard Sizemore talk about the Hippymancers' magic mushrooms. Dirtamancers work with the inanimate, not the living. Plants fall under Hippymancy. Furthermore, Jillian has never seen Haffaton use poison, although we have.

2. See above: I suspect poisoning rations is something that only sides with Hippymancers can do. While IRL it can be done very easily, in Erf it's much harder. The only times we've heard mention of poison has been related to Hippymancy.

3. Again, see above. Poison is probably not a widely available commodity. Therefore, using poison is not a standard tactic, because poison is not a 'standard' item.

I suspect that unmanned cities do not pop new rations. Rations are popped as needed, however it makes sense for a city to have a storeroom where rations were stored. As far as we know, nothing spoils in Erfworld, so having a storeroom fill at the beginning of a turn (like everything else) and remain full until rations were needed in that city again would make perfect sense.

Here's the way I see this trap working. The actual poisoning of the rations happened at the same time that the garrison units were triggered. That negates the need for a spell after the city was captured. If the city doesn't fall, the people in the city know the rations are poisoned and simply toss them out. If the city falls, the rations are already poisoned, and since the city seems to remain as-is when captured, remain for the conquering side to plunder.

The Doll, I suspect, was activated as a result of Lookamancy or something similar. "Our city fell, wtb? Let's take a look. Oh, there they are. Let's boop with them..." Again, a spell preloaded into the Doll that simply needed to be triggered could be easily set up beforehand and set off remotely.