Erfworld Thread III: As the Erf Turns

[EnragedFilia]

It's amazing how after a mere three text updates, Lord Crush is well on his way to become one of my favourite characters of this whole setting. There's just something about how calm and thoughtful he stays, no matter what situation he finds himself in, be it being suddenly asked to turn by an erstwhile ally or exchanging banter with a court jester, that's utterly awesome. Also provides a nice contrast after Inner Peace, with Jillian as main point-of-view character, who is pretty much the exact opposite.

Except in combat. Jillian has always been calm and calculating in a fight, while Crush hasn't actually had any combat scenes yet.

And for everyone that didn't see it yet, new update.

[Wayson]

It's amazing how after a mere three text updates, Lord Crush is well on his way to become one of my favourite characters of this whole setting. There's just something about how calm and thoughtful he stays, no matter what situation he finds himself in, be it being suddenly asked to turn by an erstwhile ally or exchanging banter with a court jester, that's utterly awesome. Also provides a nice contrast after Inner Peace, with Jillian as main point-of-view character, who is pretty much the exact opposite.

Let's see how calm Crush remains when his mother dies and his side's cities burn. I imagine we will see a slightly less calm Crush if that occurs.

[HandofShadows]

So your say Crush might be crushed by his losses?

[Rogar Demonblud]

I think he means it'll go more like "Crush CRUSH!"

[Killer Angel]

The only member of Clan McClown... can I facepalm, while I smile?

[RMS Oceanic]

Dunkin raises an excellent point about how some people cannot be persuaded by silly things like facts and the absolute truth. That's definitely what this situation feels like.

[CRtwenty]

Except in combat. Jillian has always been calm and calculating in a fight, while Crush hasn't actually had any combat scenes yet.

And for everyone that didn't see it yet, new update.

Well Crush is still a Warlord, and evidently has some experience under his belt. Even if he's more of a thinker fighting is something that should be natural to him.

Anyway is Dunkin just a regular fool? Or a Foolamancer? I'm guessing the former, since the text would probably have explicitly said if he was a caster.

Also it's almost certain that we'll be seeing a Dunkin Donuts joke sometime in the near future.

[Fjolnir]

We already did with Duncan Scone, CWL of Faq, formerly a unit of Jitterati....

[HandofShadows]

New one up!

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Scrofula makes Stanley look smart AND a good ruler.

[Porthos]

Prediction:

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Scrofula will, of course, ignore the battle plan since neither Crush nor McClown made him think it was his idea.

Instead, Scrofula will off-handledly give it to Axe, like he did the Sudoku puzzle, and he will realize that it is a sound plan and implement it. Either by doing it himself or by regicide.

The way I see it, Duncan realized that everything was falling apart when Scrofula demanded to know who was giving him information. So he sacrificed himself to give the plan a fighting chance.

Plus he got to tell Scrofula just what he thought of him to his face. Bonus right there.

[Lizard Lord]

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Dunkin! NOOOOOO!

[EnragedFilia]

See, what they did wrong is

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starting off with telling Scrofula why his current 'plan' of "trust Bullyclub not to destroy us" is suicidal, instead of starting with telling him how he can beat Billyclub their own game and end up looking like a genius. Hearing the first part made him inclined to not listen to the second part.

Oh well, this way Crush either gets to be a genius or gets to lose everything and teach us a lesson about how Erfworld has always worked until Parson showed up to break it. Either one is potentially important.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

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That's the first time we've seen someone get disbanded, right?

[NEO|Phyte]

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That's the first time we've seen someone get disbanded, right?

It's the first time we've had it described, but a gwiffon got disbanded back in Inner Peace.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

It's the first time we've had it described, but a gwiffon got disbanded back in Inner Peace.

Right, alright, thought so. It was sad.

[Miklus]

Prediction:

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Scrofula will, of course, ignore the battle plan since neither Crush nor McClown made him think it was his idea.

Instead, Scrofula will off-handledly give it to Axe, like he did the Sudoku puzzle, and he will realize that it is a sound plan and implement it. Either by doing it himself or by regicide.

The way I see it, Duncan realized that everything was falling apart when Scrofula demanded to know who was giving him information. So he sacrificed himself to give the plan a fighting chance.

Plus he got to tell Scrofula just what he thought of him to his face. Bonus right there.

Exept that Scrofula left the battleplan on the floor.

[Porthos]

Exept that Scrofula left the battleplan on the floor.

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Then he picks it up later. Or Axe picks it up. Plenty of ways for it to wind up in the hands of someone who can use it.

Bascially, I am saying that Dunkin mouthed off for a reason, and the reason I gave seems at least a little possible.

[Fjolnir]

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While we have seen things get disbanded (the afforementioned gwiffon in innner peace), this is the first time we see anything that is arguably sentient get the treatment.

[Killer Angel]

I really despise stupid tyrants.

[Lamech]

Could it be that many Erfworld units lack a certain level of competence that Earth worlders do? We have selective requirements, and rigorous training programs for positions like intelligence analysis, ruler, or warlord. We have years, thousands upon thousands of turns worth of experience. Even more painful is most Erfworlders don't normally deal with people who are not fanatically loyal to their ruler.

Perchance they are not particularly well prepared for their role always?

[Winterwind]

Could it be that many Erfworld units lack a certain level of competence that Earth worlders do? We have selective requirements, and rigorous training programs for positions like intelligence analysis, ruler, or warlord. We have years, thousands upon thousands of turns worth of experience. Even more painful is most Erfworlders don't normally deal with people who are not fanatically loyal to their ruler.

Perchance they are not particularly well prepared for their role always?

Nah, this is pretty much normal as far as hereditary monarchy goes. For thousands of years, vast portions of Earth have been regularly ruled by people who would make even Scrofula seem incredibly competent by comparison. I mean, he's making stupid decisions and executing underlings for dumb reasons, sure, but as far as a Caligula, Commodus or Caracalla goes, he still has far to go. Granted, most of those people met a violent end, but then, chances are that is going to be Scrofula's fate also, so... yeah, no, I'd actually argue that it is surprising that we have not yet seen an Erfworld ruler whose incompetence would rival that of the worse Earth examples. Perhaps a sign of how the incessant warfare of Erfworld weeds out the truly incompetent that much more quickly?

[Miklus]

Nah, this is pretty much normal as far as hereditary monarchy goes. For thousands of years, vast portions of Earth have been regularly ruled by people who would make even Scrofula seem incredibly competent by comparison. I mean, he's making stupid decisions and executing underlings for dumb reasons, sure, but as far as a Caligula, Commodus or Caracalla goes, he still has far to go. Granted, most of those people met a violent end, but then, chances are that is going to be Scrofula's fate also, so... yeah, no, I'd actually argue that it is surprising that we have not yet seen an Erfworld ruler whose incompetence would rival that of the worse Earth examples. Perhaps a sign of how the incessant warfare of Erfworld weeds out the truly incompetent that much more quickly?

Truth is stranger than fiction. The incompetent are not even the worst. Some of these people was outright insane. Read about Mary I AKA "Bloody Mary" or Ivan the Terrible.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Mary I wasn't too bad, as monarchs go. True, she had a body count, but her father passed that number every year, her sister outdid her in the first six months, and her grandfather...

Let's just say the Tudors sucked in general.

Commodus was a decent emperor, especially when you look at those who followed (or even a few of his predecessors {Domitian, shudder}), but he had the misfortune to follow his father, who was possibly the best Rome ever had.

Actually, forget just monarchs. Erfworld rulers are pretty comparable to just about any ruler you care to name from Earth's history. Which is depressing.

[The Glyphstone]

They didn't call him Ivan The Mildly Unpleasant.

[Lamech]

That was Iven actually. Iven, the Mildly Unpleasant, Harbinger of Annoyance, Lord of Minor Colds, and Patron of Unwanted House Guests.

[Winterwind]

Commodus was a decent emperor, especially when you look at those who followed (or even a few of his predecessors {Domitian, shudder}), but he had the misfortune to follow his father, who was possibly the best Rome ever had.

This is not in accord with what information I have on the subject, neither with regards to Commodus (who, while yes, not quite as bad or sadistic as the other two I mentioned, and a fairly okay emperor in his early reign, at the end of it had descended into some fairly insane megalomania (renaming Rome to Colonia Commodiana, anyone?), had ruined the empire fiscally for the purposes of his overzealous crowd-pleasing, and had managed to alienate everyone sufficiently nonetheless to still end up assassinated) nor to Domitian (who, in turn, I've heard was a fairly decent and benign emperor, as long as you did not happen to be a member of the Senate), but that's neither the place to discuss it, nor does it ultimately matter much to the point at hand. Point is, given how blind, tyrannical, sadistic or outright insane a lot of the historic rulers have been, Erfworld is most definitely not getting a larger share of incompetency than Earth is, and I think a decent case could be made that it is actually getting less.

[ryuplaneswalker]

This discussion brings up a question.

Okay there are Loyalty and Duty as stats, could a leader be incompetent enough that statistically the Duty stat would override the Loyalty stat and cause a Mutiny?

[The Glyphstone]

This discussion brings up a question.

Okay there are Loyalty and Duty as stats, could a leader be incompetent enough that statistically the Duty stat would override the Loyalty stat and cause a Mutiny?

That's exactly what is happening in Transylvito, apparently.

[EnragedFilia]

The way I read the Transylvito situation, the king's abuse toward Vinny have systematically dropped his loyalty stat, and the entire question of Don's competence and possible mishandling of his side is secondary to that. After all, even if Don is dumping schmuckers by placing an unlimited level of (apparently) blind faith in Jillian, he does seem to have minimized Transylvito's own losses in the Gobwin Knob conflict, since the fighting has taken place mostly in Spacerock territory. Now depending on exactly how important production and production centers are relative to schmuckers (which I'm confident will never be fully explained for a number of reasons), that apparent tradeoff may or may not be beneficial in any strategic sense. But Vinny's personal gripes were depicted in some detail, while Transylvito's actual strategic situation as a result of King Don's leadership has been left much more vague. Thus, I can only conclude that Vinny's decision is based at least as much on his personal reasons as on any belief that mutiny is necessary for the side's survival.

[Killer Angel]

What I wonder is: everyone knows that duty compels units to act in the best interest of their side.
SO, the minimal thing I expect from a ruler, is to question the apparent traitor, to know the reason behind the actions.