Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) – Episode 047

[drachefly]

Given that she's trying to do this, I doubt it would be that raw a deal. If her end of turn aligns to Haffaton's and she gets her own turn next, then she'll be able to move before them whatever the turn order.

[CF_HoneyBadger]

I dunno....it just seems that Jillian is begging to be recaptured. Its almost like book 1 all over again.

Solo-ing a city all by yourself is stupid. I don't care if its just a tree and 1 pedobear. You don't know *anything* about the city. There could be a legion of the dang bears hidden in the garrison or something. Yes, Jillian is a CW, and has a substantial amount of combat experience and good stats, but HP and other stats get decreased and worn down after repeated combat.

That reminds me, were we ever told precisely how her, Bart & co. were wiped out/captured in the last city? After she destroyed the doll, What units were used to capture her?

[0beron]

That reminds me, were we ever told precisely how her, Bart & co. were wiped out/captured in the last city? After she destroyed the doll, What units were used to capture her?

It was heavily implied that poison was used, not units. It may have either put them all to sleep, or it would have killed them all but Jillian made some kind of "saving throw" to only be knocked out instead. Either way, Haffaton would have had units within a day's march that could retrieve the bodies/captives.

[joosy]

I find it interesting that Goodminton wasn't razed and rebuilt,but rather left in the same state after it was conquered. That could be both a factor of schmuckers and serve as a reminder to Wanda about the price of defiance. In any case, to leave a capitol site (apparently) woefully undefended says a alot about Haffaton's situation. Their entire strategy seems based on Flower Power and Croakamancy in order to extend their reach beyond the 'diminishing returns' threshold Parson hinted at before. Effective so far, but obviously not forever.
I wonder if Unaroyal and/or JetStone will arise from the ashes of Haffaton. I wonder if tracing their lineage to the Titans themselves was actually true or just royal embellishments/exaggerations/outright lies.

[0beron]

I wonder if Unaroyal and/or JetStone will arise from the ashes of Haffaton. I wonder if tracing their lineage to the Titans themselves was actually true or just royal embellishments/exaggerations/outright lies.

It all depends on whether Haffaton is Royal or not. Also, even if it isn't, the whole Titanic Mandate thing may not be a lie. In a world where "lineage" isn't a biological thing, a Royal that pops could still be considered "descended" from some original Ruler of World. We don't really know how sides even come into existence in the first place, so it's hard to pin these factors down.

[bladestorm]

I find it interesting that Goodminton wasn't razed and rebuilt,but rather left in the same state after it was conquered. That could be both a factor of schmuckers and serve as a reminder to Wanda about the price of defiance. In any case, to leave a capitol site (apparently) woefully undefended says a alot about Haffaton's situation. Their entire strategy seems based on Flower Power and Croakamancy in order to extend their reach beyond the 'diminishing returns' threshold Parson hinted at before. Effective so far, but obviously not forever.
I wonder if Unaroyal and/or JetStone will arise from the ashes of Haffaton. I wonder if tracing their lineage to the Titans themselves was actually true or just royal embellishments/exaggerations/outright lies.

Maybe Jetstone splits off from Haffaton to start a new side. T'would tie in to Wanda's comment toward Ansom about him taking far more from her than the 2k+ troops she uncroaked during tBfGK. Haffaton may not die off or be defeated -- it could just split into JS, Unaroyal, and whatever current sides were not mentioned in the beginning when Goodminton still stood. Planting it in the Minty Mountains makes it really close to the cities from tBfGK. It's easy to understand why no mention of Goodminton, Frenemy, the Haffaton cities, and the likes, because they effectively ceased to exist.

The proximity, though, does bring up the question of what would happen if Wanda were to come across the ruins of Goodminton on the expansion of GK's side. She may be striking back at the descendents of the side that took her family, and then working her way back around to her home again.

[DevilDan]

I will now have nightmares about that bear thing.

[Eva]

I am betting that in Goodminton, Jillian learns something about Wanda that makes her more sympathetic.

[joosy]

I will now have nightmares about that bear thing.

I may have to try and make one at Build-a-Bear for my niece and nephew.

[davesnothere]

I wonder what the upkeep and/or rations are for Tannenbaums??
Is this bear a Dollomancy item, or a native species?

I think their occupation strategy is to use the minimal forces they can afford, and send out response troops if something gets attacked.
These would not be cities near their frontiers.

[DoctorJest]

I wonder if Haffaton's sheer size is causing it to rot and implode, unable to afford to maintain and repair everything. Forcefed so many cities it chokes on them.

Very possible. It's common in Turn-Based Strategy games, of which Erfworld is similar, that rapid expansion creates exactly these sorts of problems; you can't upgrade and defend every city because you've grabbed too much too fast for your economy to support, so you focus on bolstering up your border cities, consolodate troops, then march on enemy cities, re-consolidate on your new border, rinse repeat.

It's rarely a strategy for long-term victory because sooner or later it catches up to you and you go broke, and your enemies shred you like the paper tiger you are. You end up losing ground and not having enough cash to raise enough troops to stem the bleeding, and may even go financially bankrupt and have units disband from lack of upkeep as the few coins your undefended cities were bringing in dry up.

It's even worse if your cities are far apart in some games, like Total War, as there is often overhead for cities based on how far from the capital they are (or how big your empire is). Sooner or later, if your empire is large enough, you reach a point where additional cities are a drain on resources unless they're exceptionally rich (similar to the Diminishing Returns Parson identified).

As a short-term strategy, it can be a good way to take advantage of weak enemy borders by making a massive land-grab, but failing to properly establish your economic growth by allowing your cities to mature and upgrade and setting proper defenses before continuing your expansion can ruin you fast.

When I was a novice player, I made that mistake frequently. Taking enemy cities feels good, and makes you think you're winning, but in most TBS and 4X games, too rapid of expansion can really break you. Haffaton is making the same kind of blunder, it seems.

[DoctorJest]

Is this bear a Dollomancy item, or a native species?

Since it was described previously as "foul-tempered" and a "vicious war beast" it's safe to assume it's a native species.

[Cubbins]

Small, cute and evil. I love it.

[CelebrenIthil]

Small, cute and evil. I love it.

Says the guy who pulled Bun-Bun the homicidal bunny from his hat....

I love your commitment to the character hahah

[bladestorm]

So this means Goodminton is about 6 time further away from GK than Faq is, unless Jillian strayed way off course avoiding Haffaton patrols. She was heading Southeast, and has made no further mention of altering course. without doing the research, I recall Faq as being 2 turns away on dwagonback. Jillian, on dwagonback was 12 turns away from Faq when she landed in Goodminton. That puts Haffaton well to the northwest of GK, which rules out Jetstone as being a splinter group from Haffaton. There's also the issue of time frame. Slately has been ruler of Jetstone for over 3000 turns. Estimates of Jillian's age are under 1000 turns. So either math doesn't work, the age estimates are wrong, or Jetstone has nothing to do with Haffaton (being essentially even further from Haffaton than Transylvito, which is known to not have been consumed by Haffaton yet). speaking of math and estimates of time, since Don King has only ruled for around 400 turns, Transylvito is probably under the rule of King County as of the telling of this tale.

Do we already have a forum or page set up for a time line that my searches are missing? It'd really help to flesh out the history of Erfworld, placing when which royal member ascended to the throne, when side rose and fell, etc.

[0beron]

Well unfortunately we don't yet have any conclusive frame of reference that connects the timeline of Book 0 with the "present". We also don't have enough detail on directions to rule out Jetstone falling within Haffaton territory. Hopefully by the end of the Book we'll have that "missing link" of time. As for the geography, I'm going to try and do a re-read of the whole comic this week, and write down all the distances, so we can make a more accurate map of the world (there is one on the wiki now, but I suspect we have new information since it was drawn)

[Morni]

Well unfortunately we don't yet have any conclusive frame of reference that connects the timeline of Book 0 with the "present". We also don't have enough detail on directions to rule out Jetstone falling within Haffaton territory. Hopefully by the end of the Book we'll have that "missing link" of time. As for the geography, I'm going to try and do a re-read of the whole comic this week, and write down all the distances, so we can make a more accurate map of the world (there is one on the wiki now, but I suspect we have new information since it was drawn)

Do we have enough North, East, South, West direction to be able to map this?

I've never tried to map it before.. that would take a while.

we have a lot of distance.

ps: currently Jillian 4 turns of movement.. might be a regular 1 turn of movement she has a lot of limitation:
- use the less travel road to avoid detection
- end in a spot that's out of the way to avoid being re-captured
- forage / hunt
- any other penalties for being a "fugitive"

[Cubbins]

I really do hope that someday Rob provides the readership with a nice map of the places we've seen in the comic (up to the point where the map's made, obviously). I mean, we can try to do it ourselves, but having an 'official' one would be sweet.

[Radagast]

I really do hope that someday Rob provides the readership with a nice map of the places we've seen in the comic (up to the point where the map's made, obviously). I mean, we can try to do it ourselves, but having an 'official' one would be sweet.

Or at least drop a few more tidbits re. directions and distances so we can figure them out for ourselves.

Is "the rest of the joke" about the Pedobear the fact that it uses pedals to move around or is there more to come?

Also the question about Jillian losing the rest of her move is a really really good one. I would guess that perhaps there would be an exception, otherwise it would be a really dumb way to "end" your fugitive status - almost always going straight back to Prisoner.

Finally, perhaps leaving the city in this state is what gives Haffaton a hold on Wanda? So by extension, perhaps by razing it (which is obviously the plan, perhaps after an overnight stay) Jillian breaks Wanda free?

Finally #2, I wonder how they tamed the Pedobear?

[bladestorm]

Well unfortunately we don't yet have any conclusive frame of reference that connects the timeline of Book 0 with the "present". We also don't have enough detail on directions to rule out Jetstone falling within Haffaton territory. Hopefully by the end of the Book we'll have that "missing link" of time. As for the geography, I'm going to try and do a re-read of the whole comic this week, and write down all the distances, so we can make a more accurate map of the world (there is one on the wiki now, but I suspect we have new information since it was drawn)

We have a few small tidbits of information. Jillian was heading generally southeast during her escape from Haffaton. We've worked out that Jetstone is east of GK, TV is west of GK, and TV has not been conquered by Haffaton yet, but Haffaton has surrounded Faq. According to the Wiki, Jillian is around 700 turns old, which means all of the events in Book 0 transpired within that time, with the exception of the earlier days of Wanda's existence.

Things that would help this process:
Jillian's exact age
Wanda's age
Distances and orientation between major cities
Dates and high scores of all of the battles (such as what's in those books in the GK library)
Founding dates of the various Sides
Graphic content of the various relations Jillian has had
Graphic content of Wanda's relationships
Fanservice images of more Archons
Fanservice images of Cubbins
Fanservice images and graphic content of Sylvia's relations
pop dates of various key players from all of the story lines
Names and original sides for the casters in MK (Thats way too many for them to ALL be barbarian except for the handful from Unaroyal)
Move mechanics, to determine just how many hexes a turn on dwagon back can reach (1 move per hex because it is flying? 4 move for High Mountain?)
a time frame for when the tools were found

It may end up that Jetstone is the final breaking point for Haffaton's expansion. This would bring together Ansom's level relative to most everyone else's (he lead a lot of battles against Haffaton, razing most of the cities rather than occupying them, and possibly getting a huge chunk of XP for leading the decapitation strike against Haffaton's capital), the bad blood between Wanda and Ansom (http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F122.jpg), an introduction between Ansom and Jillian, and a basis for the inflated ego all of the Jetstones have.