It's not just the overlord, it's the capital

[Eugenitor]

New here, not sure on the local etiquette so I'ma just going to spoiler this whole thing:


I don't usually comment on fiction in progress, but...

Guys, you've all been following the red herring of "If the overlord dies, then the side is lost unless there's an Heir Designate". That was not said. What was said was "When the city fell. Shouldn't you have disbanded?" This points to the holding of the capital as a critical factor.

No capital + No ruler + No Heir = no side.

Stanley will almost certainly croak. He has no conception of his units as individuals so he will not be able to recover his Foolamancer, and his enemies are getting two turns in a row to catch up to him in.

Capital + no ruler + no heir = The highest ranking unit in the capital becomes the new ruler.

This is also in keeping with standard RTS/turn-based computer games, such as Warsong (Genesis), in which the player is given a mentor to obey for a while, then the mentor is lost as part of the plot, and now the player is the leader.

(Yes, I know- I just cast Stanley as Parson's mentor..)

I'm gonna go further and predict the next ten issues or so:

After Stanley gets croaked, and Overlord Parson pulverizes the living boop out of Ansom and whatever alliance members don't run out on him (foregone conclusion, this), Charlie will likely leave Jillian and Vinnie, and become amenable to a deal with Parson. Jillian will attune to the Arkenhammer because that's just the kind of person she is. Parson, slaughtering Jetstone, will level up a lot, and Sizemore, being the active force on these kills, will be Level Holy-Boop. :D (C'mon, you can visualize it... can't you?)

So, we have a vengeful Jillian and Vinnie versus a smug Parson and a revived, Arkenplier-attuned Wanda.

For Charlie, though, he's gonna need the money...

I'm really surprised people didn't pick up on the huge Chekov's Gun Sizemore unloaded when he mentioned that they "finally mined [the tunnels] out". What IS GK's current source of income? Do they even have one? I'm sure there's some mechanism for looting the dead, but will that be able to keep Parson's 2000-schmucker-a-day boop afloat?

(Also, I strongly suspect that Erfworld is simply not long-term sustainable and that it probably hasn't existed for more than a thousand turns, and might be significantly smaller than most people here assume. All wealth generation, and therefore existence, will eventually come to a halt. Parson will realize the heat death of Erfworld will be happening in a few years and start looking for magic powerful enough for him to GTBO.)

[SteveMB]

On the etiquette thing: Rich prefers that people spoiler-tag predictions and speculations on the Order of the Stick forum. Rob and Jamie don't particularly care about it on the Erfworld forum. Some people find it easier to just spoiler-tag on both forums.

As for the speculation -- excellent point. I think people focused on Saline rather than Gobwin Knob as the trigger for "Shouldn't you have disbanded?" because Stanley (the Heir Designate) functioned as an "emergency backup", and obviously it makes more sense to think of him as a backup for the king than as a backup for the capital. Dunno if that was intentional, but if so it was a very nice piece of tricky-but-fair misdirection.

[zillion ninjas]

Per Steve's comment on etiquette (booping ninja! :smalltongue:), I'll unspoiler your quotes for readability.


Guys, you've all been following the red herring of "If the overlord dies, then the side is lost unless there's an Heir Designate". That was not said. What was said was "When the city fell. Shouldn't you have disbanded?" This points to the holding of the capital as a critical factor.

No capital + No ruler + No Heir = no side.
...

Capital + no ruler + no heir = The highest ranking unit in the capital becomes the new ruler.

That... is a fascinating idea and possibly correct. But in the next panel (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0087.html), Sizemore also says "He promoted Stanley to Heir Designate, at great expense. That way, when the capital fell it wasn't the end of our side."

This implies some connection between having an heir and the ability of a side to survive the fall of their capital. It's more than just the heir's status from possessing the highest rank among the remaining units. This connection is still unclear.


I'm really surprised people didn't pick up on the huge Chekov's Gun Sizemore unloaded when he mentioned that they "finally mined [the tunnels] out". What IS GK's current source of income? Do they even have one? I'm sure there's some mechanism for looting the dead, but will that be able to keep Parson's 2000-schmucker-a-day boop afloat?

Also a good question.


(Also, I strongly suspect that Erfworld is simply not long-term sustainable and that it probably hasn't existed for more than a thousand turns, and might be significantly smaller than most people here assume. All wealth generation, and therefore existence, will eventually come to a halt. Parson will realize the heat death of Erfworld will be happening in a few years and start looking for magic powerful enough for him to GTBO.)


There must be income-production methods much more sustainable than gem-mining - they just wouldn't be as profitable in the short-term. For example, Faq and it's subordinate cities had both mines and farms (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0091.html). Admittedly, they still came up short in upkeep.

[SauroGrenom]

It's probably not fair to assume that resources are non-renewable. That's the case in some war games, but probably not here.

In games where resources are limited, the successful strategies and battles in general usually revolve around a land grab to defensibly control as many resources as you can. In Erfworld, what people are talking about with respect to why they are fighting has nothing to do with resources and everything to do with ethics.

Besides, Wanda mentioned that FAQ had some farms for income... So there are income sources that don't run out. Also I suspect that cities generate income to some extent. It may even be possible to upgrade cities in ways other than defenses (ie income generation).

Also Stanley likes "questing", and we're not totally sure what that means exactly. In many games questing involves going to a map location, and fighting battle(s) for a cash or item reward.

What I've seen on the game mechanics reminds me greatly of the Warlords games. In that game, the "Warlord" unit has abilities that include changing the capital city in various ways.

[Eugenitor]

This implies some connection between having an heir and the ability of a side to survive the fall of their capital. It's more than just the heir's status from possessing the highest rank among the remaining units. This connection is still unclear.

Actually it's been mostly spelled out with Jillian.

No capital + No ruler + Heir (popped or Designate) = Heir becomes the new leader of the side. Since there's no capital, the unit type becomes Barbarian (which apparently means 'not dependent on a city for upkeep'), although royalty status is preserved.

As for the economy, we can't even be sure if the farms in question don't simply run out like mines do. (Remember that real-world sense and Erfworld have nothing to do with each other.) It might be made permanent, though- with the right casters there might be an infinite money loophole. Or maybe Erfworld ends when someone wins it.

Ansom might have his royal concept of ethics, but there is not even the beginning of a presumption of an innocent person in Erfworld. Everyone and everything has a purpose either directly related to combat or its support, in much the same way as every unit in Starcraft helps its owner win the game. All they do, all they exist for, is to kill each other, and the ones who presumably have free will are not exempt from this, as King Banhammer found out to his sorrow. Warfare is hardcoded into the very fabric of their reality, and it's delightfully twisted that even Hippiemancers feed this war machine, because stopping combat is, itself, a tactic.

[Aquillion]

It could be that if a ruler is killed while they're away from their city (and have no heir), the city goes barbarian. Lots of games have mechanics like that for 'stray' units... even if it's the end of the faction, it doesn't have to be the end for everyone in it.

[Laurentio]

I overlooked the fact that a Side falls when the Capital is taken. So Stanley is not only going to take the FAQ cities for expanding his side, but he has to move the Capitol, too. Maybe he could even "dismiss" Goblin Knot, and this way save the treasure from looting. It make a sense in a tactical game (where the treasure is not a physical item, but a "side stat").

Usually, in such games, when the capital falls and there is no heir, ALL cities go "neutral", and all troops barbarian. Mostly, they became a sort of passive side under the AI control (in Civilization, they are not passive at all... barbarians are a real pain in the arse!).

Laurentio

[SteveMB]

I overlooked the fact that a Side falls when the Capital is taken. So Stanley is not only going to take the FAQ cities for expanding his side, but he has to move the Capitol, too. Maybe he could even "dismiss" Goblin Knot, and this way save the treasure from looting. It make a sense in a tactical game (where the treasure is not a physical item, but a "side stat").

If so, that might be how Parson gets out from under Stanley's control (Stanley starts his new side and cuts off GK, figuring that it's no loss since Ansom is, as far as he knows, going to conquer it anyway).