Book 2 – Page 91

[Beeskee]

Pretty sweet plan Jetstone/Charlie has there. Not that we didn't see it coming.

Unfortunately it's sort of like locking yourself in a cage with a bear. HAH. You've got him now. Well, yes, yes you do.

And, strategically, Parson expected to be trapped anyway. Though I guess if Jetstone started to win the fight, Parson might have planned to retreat. But even that must be in the garbage now, given what he has seen of the Magic Kingdom, I doubt he wants to go back through there unless necessary any time soon. Not counting his promise to meet Mr. Rogers.

The only real way for this plan to be somewhat of an advantage (edit: in the short term) is to trap Parson in Jetstone and also close the gate before Wanda can come through. Without her he loses both a huge bonus to all his decrypted units in the hex, and another bonus to decrypted that are stacked with Wanda.

In that context, all the action in the Magic Kingdom makes more sense. It's a delaying action. The thinkamancers are unwitting participants in assisting Charlie's goals, if that is the case, while the carnymancers are actively assisting.

[Whispri]

From Charlie's point of view though -- he gets a nonzero chance at croaking his archrival, without (presumably) using any of his units or giving away to Parson that it's him pulling the trigger. If it were to succeed, money well spent; if the gambit fails, he's still recovered an uncroaked Archon and financed Jetstone to not only stay in existence opposing Parson/GK but also with a more capable and intelligent leader than it had in Slately.

With regards to the Decrypted Archon: That's assuming Jetstone get Netty out of the Hex.

[No one in particular]

Unfortunately it's sort of like locking yourself in a cage with a bear. HAH. You've got him now. Well, yes, yes you do.

Actually, it's more like locking yourself in a phonebooth with a sniper. Parson is a planner, not a fighter. What he does is best done from miles away where he can't be hurt, not right in your face.

There's also the fact that he no longer has the element of surprise, and Jetstone actually knows where he'll be coming from.

Seriously, if the enemy can get close enough to Parson to even SEE him, they pose a serious threat!

[Beeskee]

Yeah, exactly, he's a planner. He wants to be in combat, but he's not going to go solo this. If the enemy sees Parson, he's going to have a wall of troops between them and him. And with mechanics like 'screening stacks' and etc, he's reasonably well protected, with a few exceptions. (Edit: Imagine the scenes from book 1 where he was leading the battle. Or view them, they start here: http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F127.jpg )


I could see him do something sort of noble-ish like single combat between him and the king, loser's side gtfos. But I bet you he runs the numbers first.

Edit: And yeah of course I grant that he has completely lost the element of surprise, regarding the location of his arrival. But in this comic we've heard that the destination for the king's party is the throne room. That means either they split their forces, or they're heading the opposite direction from Parson.

[The Bushranger]

Pretty sweet plan Jetstone/Charlie has there. Not that we didn't see it coming.

Unfortunately it's sort of like locking yourself in a cage with a bear. HAH. You've got him now. Well, yes, yes you do.

"I'm not trapped in here with you.
You're trapped in here with me."

[Spot]

I knew it!!!!!

It's all come together now. The unpopped heir is the final plot key.

Parson is going to come through that portal into a capital city site that is no longer anyone's capital, with an heir ready to pop, just as something happens to sever his connection with Stanley's side.

Parson is going to be a ruler very soon.

[vintermann]

Yeah, there's something Charlie leaves out here. Once Parson has gone through it, is pretty irrelevant: he won't be able to go back, because there will probably be a horde of shockmancers waiting to blast him back to stupidworld.

So what is Charlie trying to achieve by the capital movement ploy? The lack of a formal alliance worries me... maybe Charlie doesn't have more units ready to strike in Spacerock, but he has for the city of Jetstone.

I'm thinking: Parson goes through the portal, only to find himself in Jetstone (the city), not Spacerock. Suddenly Archons are all over the place. Charlie might have thought Slately would have balked at this, thus not letting him in on the plan (and no formal alliance, in case it becomes necessary to take Jetstone (the city) in the process)

[noname_hero]

The plan, as far as we know, doesn't make sense unless Charlie can bring some significant power into play this turn. The reason being, if Spacerock falls, portal closes, and if it doesn't, Parson is screwed anyway. So I guess Charlie does have some Archons nearby, most likely somewhere between Jetstone and Haggar (to be able to reach out to either city). And if the portal switches before Parson walks through and he finds himself in Jetstone city I bet he would walk back into MK - and he is a warlord and a heavy, so Jetstone's units in the portal room are unlikely to capture him while Charlie, not being an ally, would have to fight his way through Jetstone defences to the portal room in the few seconds it would take Parson to realize he's not where he's supposed to be. He knows there are uncroaked waiting for him too, so would have plenty of hints to warn him.

Wanda is stacked with Parson and is actually in front of him, so she will likely pass through the portal before he does (assuming he *goes* through the portal, but we have the predictamancers' word for that), so cutting off Wanda is not likely to be the aim of this plan.

Charlie can make Jetstone sacrifice most of their units weaking GK before shows up, then he asks Parson for one of the computations "the fat man" owes him and decides whether to attack based on the probability.

And it would be sort of funny if the thing that spoils his plan - and something is likely to do so - was arrival of queen Jillian. We don't *know* she actually headed home after leaving Progrock, do we? And if Wanda's life was on the line, and Jillian had to decide between Wanda and Charlie...

[vgjedi]

So the way i see this is charlie wants Parson stranded in Spacerock. With the dungeon full of GK decyrpted I dont see anyway to directly attack Parson,especially since Slately will lose troops securing the throne to move the capital. Which only leaves me with one thought on how they could kill Parson. What happens if they raze the city? We have seen it done but those times where after everyone was outside the city, which leaves me with the impression when a city is razed, all units inside croak.

[MonteCristo]

So the way i see this is charlie wants Parson stranded in Spacerock. With the dungeon full of GK decyrpted I dont see anyway to directly attack Parson,especially since Slately will lose troops securing the throne to move the capital. Which only leaves me with one thought on how they could kill Parson. What happens if they raze the city? We have seen it done but those times where after everyone was outside the city, which leaves me with the impression when a city is razed, all units inside croak.

Well one thing you can't forget is that, at the moment, Jetstone has the advantage; as Trem pointed out in the previously the jetstone side as greater numbers and greater leadership (when assessing the situation, they advanatage of decryption was the only thing he could not properly gauge and is what he thought might turn the advantage over to GK). They have 1500 units made up of infantry, heavies and warlords; and even if Trem leaves the hex, the units should likely still benefit from Slately's bonus... GK at the moment, only has the dwagons, their riders, and whoever they managed to decrypt before wanda left; and they are seriously lacking in leadership with both Parson and wanda gone. Without decryption, Slately could do a lot of damage to GK's forces before parson comes through. In fact, if Parson is stalled for too long, Jestone could actually finish off all of their forces and get to the portal room so that Parson and Wanda will be alone when they arrive. Granted, their is still potential for things to not go quite a smoothly, like if Parson and wanda arrive soon enough to take part in the fight, or if Wanda manages to decrypt the fallen jestones right away as she comes through and thus restarts the fight; but still Slately DOES have a chance of pulling this off.

[peteratjet]

Two points ...

Wasn't Parson always going to be trapped in Spacerock if he captured the city? As a zero-move garrison unit he wasn't going anywhere on foot.

Maybe not. He had not ordered the demolition of the tower with Slately in it, and didn't sound happy about it when he heard either. Maybe he intended to negotiate a ceasefire, with the threat of destruction as leverage.

Also , Tramennis needs a new hat. That one is so not his style.

[MonteCristo]

Wasn't Parson always going to be trapped in Spacerock if he captured the city? As a zero-move garrison unit he wasn't going anywhere on foot.

First, Parson promoted himself so that he is no longer a garrison unit...
Second, one key difference is that Parson will be trapped when the battle is still going on. Before the MK portal was only going to close after he won the battle, thus if he realized the he was loosing the battle the MK portal would still be open and thus an option for his escape. Now, the portal will close while the fight is still going on; If Parson looses the fight, he has no chance for escape.

So it STILL hasn't occurred to Slately or Tramennis to offer surrender in exchange for leniency from the new chief warlord of GK? Not surprising, given their outrage at Parson's lack of "honor" and failure to recognize how easily he can defeat linear thinkers, but kind of sad.

Before much of this went down, Tramennis was considering a ceasefire and setting up a non-aggression pact. And how did that end? Parson took advantage of the parley to turn the tide of battle against them. Quite frankly, Parson has proven himself poisonous to negotiate with in the mist of battle. Not to mention the fact that you are saying that Jetstone should just surrender which is what GK was demanding they do from the very begining; this whole battle is about resisting being ruled by stanely and you expect them to just give up? Besides, when it comes down to it, Jetstone does still have a fighting chance with their current forces... and now that Trem has become the heir, he can continue to fight another day, so that this battle does not mean the end of the war.

[Zeku]

The complete destruction of Spacerock seems more likely than anything else. Were assuming that the heir doesn't pop because the capital is being moved, but it also possible that it won't pop because the city will be annihilated. Or perhaps there are shenanigans involving the new heir and self-annihilation, like Queen whatsherface.

The whole thing has a slight Empire Strikes Back vibe, and if that's the case, Parson's about to get some surgery.

[zilfallon]

Just how booped up it would be if Parson somehow ended up founding his own side at Spacerock? I wonder what would Charlie's reaction be.

[wrecan]

Of course the plan makes no sense. Slately is lying to his son. The plan is to meet Parson in the throne room and kill him. But Tramennis would never support such a plan so Slately lies. I think Tramennis will shirtly see through the lie.

[onlyme]

Now that is a gem, if there ever was one.

Charlie seems to be willing to invest quite a sum. Such a huge sum that one has to fear he is sure to get it back, soon.

[Guppy]

As we saw in Book One, alliances all share the same turn, and making/breaking alliances mid-turn DOES work. We saw a group break alliance in order to get an extra turn.

Does the extra-turn mechanic work for units who get captured/liberated as well? Well, over the past few weeks we've gotten a lesson on the mechanics of captured units (as well as the mechanics of doubles). Possible foreshadowing?

[Morni]

So it STILL hasn't occurred to Slately or Tramennis to offer surrender in exchange for leniency from the new chief warlord of GK? Not surprising, given their outrage at Parson's lack of "honor" and failure to recognize how easily he can defeat linear thinkers, but kind of sad.

Also, it's hard to see how changing the capital would change ANYTHING. Sure, the portal closes. If GK takes the garrison, the exact same thing would happen. Win or win slowly, Parson is trapped in Spacerock for the turn. Charlie's suggested strategy doesn't actually change anything for Jetstone or Parson, unless Tramennis was indeed correct that Charlie fears not a continuation of hostilities, but an alliance between Jetstone & GK.

As we saw in Book One, alliances all share the same turn, and making/breaking alliances mid-turn DOES work. We saw a group break alliance in order to get an extra turn.

The key thing is that if Parson takes the city, Jetstone's turn ends. However, if Slately uses the throne to change the capital, then Jetstone's ally, Charlie, can still act on their turn.

Charlie will not ally with the RCC2 for 1 reason. Charlies natural turn order is before GK and RCC. if he allies himself.. he looses 1 turn. here's the why

• He's turn passed already, Charlie's troop is already at 0 movement. They can't come in
• if he allies now, his next movement will be after GK
• if Charlie wants to go before GK he has to be un-allied

[Jinren]

"No formal terms of alliance" were reached between a master manipulator and someone who outright said in his previous appearance that he will believe anything Charlie tells him?

i.e. there is nothing currently established to be binding Charlie to anything he promised Slately, in exchange for a move that doesn't appear to do that much beyond what Parson was expecting to happen anyway...?

Yeah, whatever Charlie's actual plan is, I think we haven't seen it, or anything even resembling it, yet.


As far as the heir popping in a nonaligned city business goes... is Slately receiving money from Charlie, or did he "cancel" the heir and reclaim the funds to promote Tram with those? Obviously if it's the second one we won't be seeing this person after all.

[Nnelg]

As far as the heir popping in a nonaligned city business goes... is Slately receiving money from Charlie, or did he "cancel" the heir and reclaim the funds to promote Tram with those? Obviously if it's the second one we won't be seeing this person after all.

I don't think that units cost money to pop, only time.

If Charlie has yet another secret weapon, it will need to be deployed this turn, during Jetstone's (the RCC2's) turn for the portal closure to matter. Jetstone can't end turn with GK holding most of the garrison (and the battle will continue when Slately leads the charge).

Why not? Charlescomm's turn is before GK's. And Cubbins won't croak until the start of Jetstone's next turn.

Also, it's hard to see how changing the capital would change ANYTHING. Sure, the portal closes. If GK takes the garrison, the exact same thing would happen. Win or win slowly, Parson is trapped in Spacerock for the turn. Charlie's suggested strategy doesn't actually change anything for Jetstone or Parson, unless Tramennis was indeed correct that Charlie fears not a continuation of hostilities, but an alliance between Jetstone & GK.

Of course the plan makes no sense. Slately is lying to his son. The plan is to meet Parson in the throne room and kill him. But Tramennis would never support such a plan so Slately lies. I think Tramennis will shirtly see through the lie.

Hm, a very astute observation... I wonder how quickly Tramennis will make it.

The key thing is that if Parson takes the city, Jetstone's turn ends. However, if Slately uses the throne to change the capital, then Jetstone's ally, Charlie, can still act on their turn.

Um, even if Parson does take the city, I don't see how it'll affect turn order.