Erfworld thread IV: In memory of King Saline

[Porthos]

A reaction to the latest update:

Spoiler

Show

The last bit makes me wonder if one of the ulterior motives Charlie had to make the truce was to, well not quite turn Parson, but make him more amenable to him. Make him NOT want to take him out. Make Parson come to think that Charlie could be left alone in his corner of the world. If Charlie fears Parson that much, and it appears that he might, why not try every avenue that doesn't involve sledgehammers before going the wasteful route of WARWARWAR?

It's the old carrot and the stick apporach but on a softer, subtler, level.

This doesn't even need to be expanded much at all, in fact. Seeing it here is enough to perhaps suggest it.

IOW, was this bit at the end happenstance, or a partial gamble/strategy on Charlie's part? Be nice to think it is just coincidence. But Charlie might be enough of a chessmaster to see it as a possiblity and to try to see it through.

[Bird]

Spoiler

Show

So don't justify it. Say "I need it and I won't communicate without it." Sure it smells fishy as heck, but if it leads others to the correct conclusion without stating the cause, is that a breach (I haven't reread the contract today, so maybe the wording does cover that)?

Spoiler

Show

The contract with Charlie isn't a problem, here, I don't think. The problem is the pinkie swear with the Great Minds, which prevents Parson from even hinting at the secrets of Thinkamancy (including that Charlie has compromised Thinkamancy). If I were Parson, I'd want to test the limits of the swear by trying to bring up encryption with someone, but the mindbonk might stop him.

OTOH, insisting on encryption would let Charlie know that Parson knows that...you get the idea. In some instances, it might be more useful for Parson to play dumb, b/c it would let him deliberately feed Charlie misinformation by sending someone a Thinkagram and hoping that Charlie taps it.

[halfeye]

Spoiler

Show

The contract with Charlie isn't a problem, here, I don't think. The problem is the pinkie swear with the Great Minds, which prevents Parson from even hinting at the secrets of Thinkamancy (including that Charlie has compromised Thinkamancy). If I were Parson, I'd want to test the limits of the swear by trying to bring up encryption with someone, but the mindbonk might stop him.

OTOH, insisting on encryption would let Charlie know that Parson knows that...you get the idea. In some instances, it might be more useful for Parson to play dumb, b/c it would let him deliberately feed Charlie misinformation by sending someone a Thinkagram and hoping that Charlie taps it.

However, surely I know that you know that I know that you know etc.

[Winterwind]

It seems like different units/sides might have different affinities towards types of Dance-Fighting.
I think I got the impression somewhere that Rockers were more powerful Dance-Fighters, but I could also see it just being a matter of Signamantic Synergy.

Dance-Fighting itself doesn't win battles, it just gives you a hefty bonus. However, there is a significant amount of overlap between Rocker Signamancy, and combat Signamancy. Rockers get to ride into battle with leather, spikes, and ferocious war-paint. They get to wield Axes, support their dancing with lightning and pyrotechnics, ect. Other dance-fighters have to chose suboptimal combat gear if they want to max out their bonuses in the dance-fight, Rockers don't.

This might be balanced by something else. Perhaps Rockers don't benefit as much from having a large amount of units in the dance-fight.

Well, in this update, at least, Stanley says that Rock is the highest music there is (in fact, calling it 'Titanic'), and also states that rocking out is better than dancefighting.

[BRC]

Well, in this update, at least, Stanley says that Rock is the highest music there is (in fact, calling it 'Titanic'), and also states that rocking out is better than dancefighting.

That's Stanely. He's likely to state his personal opinion/preference as Fact.

Then again, Rocking Out seems to use different mechanics than Dance Fighting. Sammy Hagar seemed to be Rocking Out when he attacked Ansom's column.
But we also see Stanley react to a dance-fight by Rocking out, and Transylvito seemed to think they could out-dance Stanley's Rockers with the support of the Archons.

So yeah, I'm confused.

[Bird]

I'd also be skeptical of Stanley's claim that it's "better," especially since rocking out may only be "better" than dance fighting in the context of wielding the Arkenhammer. Maybe it is technically superior, though, bonus-wise. Hard to say.

BRC brings up an interesting point about signamancy and dance fighting. Transylvito style is to dress like a greaser or a mafioso instead of wearing armor. Also, they like to kick things as much as they like to use weapons. I've never really thought that they suffered numerically for this--my feeling was that in Erfworld, dressing for a rumble is just as legit as wearing plate and wielding an axe. I could be wrong, though.

Spoiler: Book Zero

Show

Random aside: maybe an unknown power of the Arkenshoes is that they provide a dance-fight bonus. Off-to-see-the-wizard dance, anyone?

[BRC]

I'd be skeptical of Stanley's claim that it's "better," especially since rocking out may only be "better" than dance fighting in the context of wielding the Arkenhammer. Maybe it is technically superior, though, bonus-wise. Hard to say.

BRC brings up an interesting point about signamancy and dance fighting. Transylvito style is to dress like a greaser or a mafioso instead of wearing armor. Also, they like to kick things as much as they like to use weapons. I've never really thought that they suffered numerically for this--my feeling was that in Erfworld, dressing for a rumble is just as legit as wearing plate and wielding an axe. I could be wrong, though.

Transylvito are also a very atypical side.

Most Sides seem to follow the standard template of looking like Erfified Humans, wearing armor of their side's colors, with Specials handed out semi-randomly, and the bulk of their units being "Men", standard human-looking infantry.

Meanwhile, every Transylvitan we've seen is a Vampire, with the flying special and some natural Thinkamancy to communicate with their Bats. Instead of ground troops, they have Warlords and Bats, which rely on their Warlords to boost them. Their Warlords also seem to fight unarmed for the most part.

Its possible that Transylvito gets to dress like Greasers because they're naturally tough enough that they don't need armor, whereas a "Mundane" Side wouldn't be able to get away with that. They're a highly specialized Side that loses most of the basic tools a Side can have in exchange for powerful, flying Warlords.

[Anteros]

They could have other units we simply haven't seen much of.

[Kornaki]

That's Stanely. He's likely to state his personal opinion/preference as Fact.

Then again, Rocking Out seems to use different mechanics than Dance Fighting. Sammy Hagar seemed to be Rocking Out when he attacked Ansom's column.
But we also see Stanley react to a dance-fight by Rocking out, and Transylvito seemed to think they could out-dance Stanley's Rockers with the support of the Archons.

So yeah, I'm confused.

Transylvito also had significant troop superiority, and Don was concerned about winning the fight anyway. I think it's clear that dancing on a per unit basis was not going to be as effective as rocking (how much of that was because Stanley had a rocking Arkentool is unknown).

[HandofShadows]

That's Stanely. He's likely to state his personal opinion/preference as Fact.

Then again, Rocking Out seems to use different mechanics than Dance Fighting. Sammy Hagar seemed to be Rocking Out when he attacked Ansom's column.
But we also see Stanley react to a dance-fight by Rocking out, and Transylvito seemed to think they could out-dance Stanley's Rockers with the support of the Archons.

So yeah, I'm confused.

The Titians in Erfworld are Elvis impersonators (Vagas style) and Elvis was a Rock and Roll star. Rocking out may well have a Titanic mandate. The Transylvito dance fighting is also Rock based though. And of course Wanda did Thriller. So I find it likely that anything rock connected has an advantage.

[Landis963]

The Titians in Erfworld are Elvis impersonators (Vagas style) and Elvis was a Rock and Roll star. Rocking out may well have a Titanic mandate. The Transylvito dance fighting is also Rock based though. And of course Wanda did Thriller. So I find it likely that anything rock connected has an advantage.

Transylvito dance-fighting was musical theater based, specifically, West Side Story. I think it's just natural Rhyme-o-mancy.

When you're a bat, you're a bat all the way,/
From the moment you're popped, 'til the turn you decay!

Do do do do do! Do do do do do do do!

[Legato Endless]

Meanwhile, every Transylvitan we've seen is a Vampire, with the flying special and some natural Thinkamancy to communicate with their Bats.

Excepting their casters, Benny and maybe Bill.

[slayerx]

Transylvito are also a very atypical side.

Most Sides seem to follow the standard template of looking like Erfified Humans, wearing armor of their side's colors, with Specials handed out semi-randomly, and the bulk of their units being "Men", standard human-looking infantry.

Meanwhile, every Transylvitan we've seen is a Vampire, with the flying special and some natural Thinkamancy to communicate with their Bats. Instead of ground troops, they have Warlords and Bats, which rely on their Warlords to boost them. Their Warlords also seem to fight unarmed for the most part.

They have swords... just seems like a lot of them prefer hand-to-hand. Could be that some of them have a special for hand-to-hand combat, or maybe that was just part of their west side story dance fighting style. Jillian also forgone her armor when she was planning to dance fight; so armor and weapons may not matter when your dance fighting, or the bonus you get from dance fighting more than makes up for the fact that you need to do it without armor... Come to think of it, i don't think i've ever seen a flying warlord with armor; i might even think its possible that flying units don't wear armor because it weighs them down; its the trade off they get for being able to fly

And actually they CAN pop infantry. They have Men manning their ships at their seaside cities. I would guess that we don't see them with much infantry because they don't think they are worthwhile. Most of their commanders can fly; Goyles/skanks, Firebirds, thunderbirds, and Bats are all flying units. They are a powerful air-based side. Men can't fly and thus would be limited to moving on the ground... not only are they less mobile than their flying troops, but their commanders can't take advantage of their flying specials if they lead those troops on the ground. So they replace every man with a dozen bats, and try to win through superior numbers. They might limit their ground troops to defensive positions. The Dollamancer can cover a lot of this. Men might be the only units they have that can pop with a seafarer special, hence them manning the ships.

[tomaO2]

Oh my god. Was browsing the Erf forums and saw this.

The stack bonus does diminish beyond 8, and can reach 0 again (the same bonus as a 1-unit stack). If there's something in canon which says otherwise, then I'm afraid that's my mistake.

So a group of 16 unled units is obviously much more effective as two 8-unit stacks than as a single stack of 16.

With led stacks, you might think that you'd want to max them and sacrifice the stacking bonus for the broader application of the leadership bonus to more units. But you have to balance the worth of more units against the effectiveness of the warlord in combat. The stack bonus applied to the warlord can make him/her a much more powerful combat threat.

So with a stack of 8 with a level 2 warlord vs a stack of 16 with a level 2 warlord, the stacking bonus applied to the warlord in the smaller stack may give them the additional power to cut through the screen and take out their opposite number. That would leave a led stack against and unled one, and we know how that goes.

Warlords lead stacks of 8 because they like the bonus on themselves. They'd prefer to survive the battle!.
..........

With Transylvito's bats, you have 3 cases:
The warlord wants to scout.
The warlord wants to engage a target personally (using their own combat power)
The warlord does not want to engage, but wants to put a lot of meat into battle

With 1, the warlord uses the bats as expendable spy drones and tries to avoid combat, because the bats are individually vulnerable.

With 2, the warlord would want to enter battle as an 8-stack, using the bats to screen the targets s/he doesn't want to engage, but hitting the desired targets personally (typically the leadership, special units, or any target supplying a bonus to the enemy stack).

3 happens when the warlord (especially a higher level one) is fighting a big battle, where there are units in the hundreds or thousands fighting on the scene. In that case, the applied leadership to the many is effectively a better multiplier than the stack bonus, and something like the logic in this comic applies. The warlords generally do not fight in this case, but try to overwhelm their opponents' unled and lower-level led stacks, plowing into an opposing army, defeating them stack by stack. Between engagements, they would call in reinforcements and re-stack.

There is a maximum possible stack size, which is some number like [unit class * unit levels] (Or maybe unit class * unit hits. I haven't fully fleshed this out down to the math, but this mechanical principle is settled). It may be that certain units have NO_MAX as their special, allowing swarmlike stacks as you saw in the battle at the pass, or it may be that the bats are so weak that that is a max stack. That's another case where I haven't settled that as a canon mechanic, but for dramatic purposes it's pretty clear in my head.

With mounted units, both units count toward the stack bonus. However! They do not count as "units past 8" toward the declining stack bonus. In this way, a warlord and 3 knights riding 4 heavy mounts would get the full stack bonus. But so would a warlord and 7 knights riding 8 mounts. Any units beyond that would begin to reduce the bonus, but that kind of firepower in one stack might already be a max stack.

Hope that clears things up. It's fine if people want to add this information to the wiki as proposed canon. ~Rob

......................

Oh, and the stack bonus stays consistent throughout the engagement. No suiciding low units to raise your bonus in combat. You would have to disengage from the fight, which carries the penalty of your opponents getting free hitsies as you run away.
................

It's about time. Man I've been wanting to get some solid stats on why they fight like they do since the comic started!

So the ideal stack is a warlord, 7 riders, and 8 mounts.

Bonus is highest at 8 men, so that means it goes down by at least one when you go above the ideal.

A one unit stack has no bonus, and if it gets too big it can become 0 again.

Stack bonus stays the same during the entire battle.

Leadership bonus disappears when the warlord dies regardless of it being during a battle or not.

Likely that Leadership bonus can be added during the battle as well.

Likely maximum stack bonus is +7.

A good base attack is +6.

A good base movement for land units is +18.

Good base movement for fliers is +50.

Artemis considers archery units that are at least level 3 to be prime.

I'm going to speculate on what typical stats are for the normal units now.

Speculation:

Warlord can give a bonus to any unit it stacks with during battle. Therefore, for maximum personal bonus. The warlord will go into a battle with an 8/16 stack and then stack the rest of the army so it can also gain the warlord bonus, without taking away from his original stacking bonus.

Warlord units are +3 attack and defence.

Ansom with a +10 leadership, while stacked with Wanda who has a +8 arkentool bonus, in an ideally sized stack has +33 attack. Assuming a +7 stack bonus, his base attack is 8.

Assuming that the base for a typical warlord is 3. Ansom gets a +1 for being a royal unit, and an additional +1 for every two levels he gets above his first (levels 3, 5, 7, 9).

3+1 (royal)+ 4(levels)= 8

Going by that base. I would further speculate that the base 3 infantry are like this.

Stabbers= 2 att/1 def
Pikers= 1 att (+1 if defensively entrenched; +1 if fighting stabbers)/ 1 def
Archery= 1 att (0 at melee range)/ 1 def

With a +1 to both attack and defence every 2 levels beyond level 1.

The even numbers might give bonuses to movement and/or hit points.

Stabbers and pikers can be promoted to warlord or knight. Knight has higher attack/defence then a warlord but lacks the command bonus. The two options are mutually exclusive.

A knight would have to be at least 4 att/ 4 def in this case.

Warlord, knight, stabber, piker and archer. That is the basic 5 unit types that all sides have access too.

The part I'm least sure of is archer warlord promotion. Might be a bit more lopsided like 5/1 or something. Archers seem unpopular for promotion for some reason. Perhaps just because it's rare to pop it and few promote from archers instead?

Another thing pointed out was fliers don't seem to wear armor. Possibly because the armor weighs them down so they can't fly. So, there are some drawbacks for flight. Probably a -1 to defence if you don't wear armor.

Crits are confusing. Possible that only led units or specials like warlords/knights are capable of having them and there are modifiers depending on the target. Could go like 10% if unit is 5 attack higher then defence. Extra 5% per additional point. Max 50%. Some specials have them, like gas attacks, while some are incapable like fire attacks.

Something really weak, such as a bat, likely has 0 for both attack and defence and relies upon stack/leadership bonuses to do damage.

infantry and heavies can't ride mounts, only knights and commanders can.

OKAY! Let's try to recreate a battle.

During dwagonfall.

Sylvia is incapacitated. A level 1 warlord attacks with 4 infantry. Her defender is a heavy hobgobwin knight.

Bonuses:
Sylvia is level 6, in a 2 stack with a level 2 chief warlord that isn't in the hex (1/3 level 2 bonus= 0?). I would guess you get 0 bonus because Syvia mentioned getting a boost when Parson arrived on the hex. Since Parson is level 2 and hex bonus is 1/2 total. That implies 0 boost when he's not there. Also, he's likely not decrypted, although that's not certain. So no +4 decrypted bonus.
+6+1+0= +7
Jetstone warlord is level 1, in a 5 stack, with a chief warlord in the hex... at level 8 (could be lower, Tram didn't seem to fight much)?
+1+4+4(?)= +8

Bonuses are probably equal. So the main difference would be what is the bonus of a heavy knight? If the base is 4 for a knight, I would guess a promotion to heavy gives a +3 to att/def and a bunch of HP. His total is +14/+14.

Jetstone warlord is the target. He is likely not a royal, so his base is +3 with +8 for bonuses. Total is +11/+11. If he is leading stabbers, they would be +10/+9.

Hobs seem to be able to only attack once per turn but can kill at least 2 per turn if the HP is low enough with some sort of cleave attack. If the warlord doesn't properly screen he can go down fast. Possibly a heavy unit can bulrush through infantry as well to get to the warlord. If hob kills the warlord first and the rest become easy prey.

Jack is 2/2, 6 hp, 8 move
Bogroll is 5/4 12hp,

A level 5 city can make
6 stabbers per turn
8 pikers per turn
8 archers per turn
1 gump... every 3 turns

A level 4 city can pop an heir in 60 turns.
An heir costs 150K-ish smuckers to designate.

Jetstone pops orlies, unipegataur, gumps.
Spacerock pops knights, sourmanders/ ???

GK pops ogers, spiders, dwagons.

Transilvito pops bats, goyles (no mount, because everything flies), skanks

FAQ pops knights, gwiffens, mega-gwiffens

Production probably works like this

Level 1, Stabbers, Pikers, Archers+ Knights or special unit (1 per turn)
Level 2: Commander + Mount unit (1 per 2 turns, both)
Level 3: Special unit (1 per 3+ turns)

Additional options if on a sea side hex?

I would guess that Capital sites always produce the same things but normal city sites can produce whatever the capital site does if razed and rebuilt.

I would guess that hit points are limited but don't reach 0 unless it hits a vital zone. So getting an arm cut off can bring you to 1 hit point but getting the other arm cut off can't finish you off. You have to be given a solid hit in the chest, throat or head area to die, possibly torso. This allows hp to be limited but makes sure you don't die from a paper cut. As there is no bleeding mechanic and I've never seen someone die from being dismembered, I think this makes sense.

[Wayson]

Is it just me, or have Wednesday updates quietly stopped? We didn't have one last week and I've waited until now to accept that apparently we won't have one this week.

[HandofShadows]

The Wednesday updates were supposed to be intermitant from the start.

[Kornaki]

Speaking of Wednesday updates

[HandofShadows]

Spoiler

Show

I think I know what he is going to do. He's going to have the Eagle go and capture the 2nd officers from the other ships. That might bring the Qauken to HIS side.

[Kornaki]

Spoiler

Show

I think I know what he is going to do. He's going to have the Eagle go and capture the 2nd officers from the other ships. That might bring the Qauken to HIS side.

Spoiler

Show

I thought he was just going to kill them, but you are right, from what we saw if he brings them over to his boat he should have an army of quakkens fighting for him. Now, how the devil does he keep them all tamed on the next turn?

[Rogar Demonblud]

The next Forecastle update ought to be interesting.

[Douglas]

Spoiler

Show

Now, how the devil does he keep them all tamed on the next turn?

Profligate expenditure of Shmuckers to pop ludicrous amounts of fresh bread in the ship's rations?

[Kornaki]

Profligate expenditure of Shmuckers to pop ludicrous amounts of fresh bread in the ship's rations?

I forgot this is Erfworld, nobody actually needs to do anything to pop more.

[Douglas]

I forgot this is Erfworld, nobody actually needs to do anything to pop more.

Doing things at least superficially resembling the real world activity exists, but is merely a cost saving measure.

Spoiler

Show

Those furnaces/ovens the ship has are probably completely ignored by all the sailors, but grant the ship the ability to either convert wheat to bread or outright pop bread directly at greatly reduced price, thus making the Quakken taming strategy much more economical.

[Welf]

I liked the wonderful illustration by Xin.

[HandofShadows]

I liked the wonderful illustration by Xin.

Xin's work started out very good and she keeps getting better.

[Legato Endless]

One ship against a fleet? Pretty grim. But that's nothing compared to victory. Should Forecastle win this engagement decisively, what will he do next turn when he has even more mouths to feed?

[AgentPaper]

Eaaagullll! (it's near the end)

[Killer Angel]

Numbers may still be a problem. The eagle got few remaining luck points.

[Welf]

I don't think he has to win them all, just 6 or 7 so he has as much or more quakkens them them.

[Douglas]

I'm pretty sure only Seaworld warlords can see the status of the Luckamancy reserve. Anchorbar may see the first 2 or 3 of their Quakken friends get taken out and retreat, with no way to know that an invisible limited resource is being used up to do it.