Erfworld thread IV: In memory of King Saline

[Welf]

In that case, it's like having a big bonus one battle at a time, which is a big deal tactically, but doesn't compare to the overwhelming strategic implications of massive intelligence on enemies, or of a massive upkeep-free army that grows all the time--not to mention second chances to use croaked casters, etc.

Dwagon taming is a nice perk of the hammer, since dwagons seem to be a fantastic unit. But I have to agree that the hammer doesn't quite measure up to the other tools.

To ryu's point--I tend to think that despite being attuned, Stanley hasn't fully realized the hammer's potential. The first thing we saw Stanley do with it was experiment with turning nuts into pigeons, implying that he hasn't figured out all of its secrets.

The Hammer is a pretty powerful tool and measuers up to the Pliers. I think it takes about 4 or turns to pop a dwagon, meaning that by searching randomly for a dwagon like Stanley and getting one every 2 or 3 days you in add the production capacity of 1,6 to 2 cities to your realm. Make it more systemically like Parson and search say 400 hexes a day with scouts or a dwagon express and you add 8 to 10 cities to your production capacity. If I assume that with a dwagon you can travel 30 hexes away and back and there are multiple mounts in reserve from one city every day around 900 hexes should be farmable. That would be 4,5 dwagons a day or the production capacity of 18 to 22,5 cities. Cities with at last level 3. That is A LOT.
Gobwin Know had 16 cities before the battle of Spacerock and already ran into money problems, so this seems to be the cap for a normal side. Having the Hammer means that with a bit of thinking you can add the production capacity of the greatest empire of the world to your normal unit production, and from turn 1. With that amount of production you can simple keep farming and send a stack of 18 dwagons every four turns. Set two cities on warlord production and you have two led stacks. Set another few on knight production and you have led stacks with riders. Even as worst strategist you can wear down your enemy with that, turn by turn.
And then you haven't even used the direct combat abilities of the Hammer. As Parson said, numbers are additional, but battles are won with multipliers. And the Hammer has a bunch of them. Constant direct arkentool bonus, massive bonus from Rocking Out which gives more bonus than dance fight. And you get massive to take out larger weak stacks and electric attacks to attack leadership.
Just imagine fighting 45 dwagons with leadership, mounted knights, Rock Out dance fight, Arkentool bonus, chief warlord bonus and magic attacks. Even if you win you will have massive losses. And 10 turns later you will have the same attack force again at your doorstep.

[TheStranger]

Even with the hammer, don't you have to pay upkeep on your dwagons? So while it's great for quickly building a strike force or replacing losses, it doesn't circumvent the soft cap on army size. The pliers do - you can apparently have an unlimited number of upkeep-free troops. Given time, you could grow an arbitrarily large army with the pliers, which removes one of the major constraints on massive sides in Erfworld. Depending on how bad the diminishing returns are from having too many cities, it could even allow nearly unlimited growth.

IMO, the pliers are the most exploitable arkentool, if not the most directly powerful. The others provide major benefits, but the pliers fundamentally change the balance of the game. Give a player like Parson the pliers and time, and he'll start croaking and decrypting his own units as fast as he can pop replacements (or arranging high-casualty battles to achieve the same effect), until he's got an army big enough to raze every city in Erfworld.

[Ravenlord]

The decrypted army would still hinge on a single weak spot though - the pliers and their croakamancer, that is. A properly used Arkenhammer with a strike force of dragons could break through most defences and eliminate that threat... a surgical strike not unlike those annoying siege-tank drops in Starcraft.

Kind of a moot point though - given the nature of the Arkentools, it's more than likely that Fate has roles for all their wielders. That's a really major drag on them, too. You get this huge, almost unchecked power... in exchange for shackles that railroad you into being unable to use them properly (lest you broke Erfworld).

[ryuplaneswalker]

Even with the hammer, don't you have to pay upkeep on your dwagons? So while it's great for quickly building a strike force or replacing losses, it doesn't circumvent the soft cap on army size. The pliers do - you can apparently have an unlimited number of upkeep-free troops. Given time, you could grow an arbitrarily large army with the pliers, which removes one of the major constraints on massive sides in Erfworld. Depending on how bad the diminishing returns are from having too many cities, it could even allow nearly unlimited growth.

From what I understand, the DR starts to kick in and kicks hard. Haffaton had 25 some cities If I recall and had almost no army in order to be able to cover upkeeps, and yes as I understand it if you do recruit dwagons with the hammer you have to pay the upkeep, so using a group of superhardcore dragons to take over all of erf is almost impossible because as those dragons level they get higher upkeep, which is getting harder and harder to pay.

that is where the pliers fundamentally break things, no upkeep means you can expand forever.

[Mobius Twist]

From what I understand, the DR starts to kick in and kicks hard. Haffaton had 25 some cities If I recall and had almost no army in order to be able to cover upkeeps, and yes as I understand it if you do recruit dwagons with the hammer you have to pay the upkeep, so using a group of superhardcore dragons to take over all of erf is almost impossible because as those dragons level they get higher upkeep, which is getting harder and harder to pay.

that is where the pliers fundamentally break things, no upkeep means you can expand forever.

Haffaton had at least seventy cities, including fifteen capital sites, and some hundreds of units.

The number of units is definitely insufficient to control the vastness of the side, so your point is absolutely still valid. I just wanted to point out the correct values. The side was HUGE.

[TheStranger]

It's not 100% clear whether Erfworld has "flattening" diminishing returns, where total income no longer increases beyond a certain point, or "shrinking" returns, where adding more cities actually reduces gross income until it approaches zero with a large enough side. If the former, growth is still limited by the upkeep of the units and buildings required by a large empire - if you add more cities, those expenses increase even though income doesn't. But in that case, decrypted units eliminate a major expense and vastly increase your potential size. If the latter, there's a much more absolute cap on empire size. No matter how big your decrypted army is, you can't add cities past where you lose the income you need for your buildings and your living units.

But, if there's no practical limit on the size of your decrypted army, you can achieve world domination a different way - just destroy everything that you don't control. Grow your side as much as you reasonably can, then spend thousands of turns adding to your decrypted force until you can send out enough troops to raze literally every city in the world.

[ryuplaneswalker]

Haffaton had at least seventy cities, including fifteen capital sites, and some hundreds of units.

The number of units is definitely insufficient to control the vastness of the side, so your point is absolutely still valid. I just wanted to point out the correct values. The side was HUGE.

Yeah my bad, I remembered it wrong but the numbers are not so much my point.

[Welf]

Even with the hammer, don't you have to pay upkeep on your dwagons? So while it's great for quickly building a strike force or replacing losses, it doesn't circumvent the soft cap on army size. The pliers do - you can apparently have an unlimited number of upkeep-free troops. Given time, you could grow an arbitrarily large army with the pliers, which removes one of the major constraints on massive sides in Erfworld. Depending on how bad the diminishing returns are from having too many cities, it could even allow nearly unlimited growth.

IMO, the pliers are the most exploitable arkentool, if not the most directly powerful. The others provide major benefits, but the pliers fundamentally change the balance of the game. Give a player like Parson the pliers and time, and he'll start croaking and decrypting his own units as fast as he can pop replacements (or arranging high-casualty battles to achieve the same effect), until he's got an army big enough to raze every city in Erfworld.

Upkeep is only an issue when you want to build up a large army. But you don't have to do that. Just send all the new dwagons to fight till they croak and then send the next batch. At any given time there wouldn't be more than 30 or 40 dwagons in an side's forces. A stack at home for farming and defence and the rest either gathering in the capital or another city for the next attack or approaching the next enemy.
With the Arkenpliers you maybe can take over every city in the world, but all these cities will be more or less useless because you can't use them to produce anything. An alternative would be to raze all small cities and force many one-city states to ally with you and pay you daily tribute. And that you can do with the Hammer already.

[TheStranger]

Upkeep is only an issue when you want to build up a large army. But you don't have to do that. Just send all the new dwagons to fight till they croak and then send the next batch. At any given time there wouldn't be more than 30 or 40 dwagons in an side's forces. A stack at home for farming and defence and the rest either gathering in the capital or another city for the next attack or approaching the next enemy.

A large army becomes essential when you have a large side, though. Otherwise, you're spread too thin, and you can't bring a meaningfully large force to bear in any one spot without weakening yourself somewhere else. At best, you're constantly putting down rebellions and waging wars of retribution against neighbors that raze your cities while your back is turned. That's the advantage of the pliers - you can have a arbitrarily large military in a side of any size, so you don't have any weak points.

With the Arkenpliers you maybe can take over every city in the world, but ...

There is no "but." Once you take over (or raze) every city in the world, you've won Erfworld. At that point, you can do whatever you want. Raze all but ten cities to get your production back and use it to build statues of yourself, if you want. It's not like the production matters at that point, or your treasury - you don't need it for anything, because you have no enemies.

I'm not saying the Hammer isn't an incredibly valuable asset that makes for a powerful side, because it is. But the pliers break Erfworld entirely.

[Fjolnir]

The major issue is not unit upkeep, but rather city upkeep...

[Killer Angel]

A large army becomes essential when you have a large side, though. Otherwise, you're spread too thin, and you can't bring a meaningfully large force to bear in any one spot without weakening yourself somewhere else. At best, you're constantly putting down rebellions and waging wars of retribution against neighbors that raze your cities while your back is turned. That's the advantage of the pliers - you can have a arbitrarily large military in a side of any size, so you don't have any weak points.

I tend to agree, but we know that units uncroacked by pliers, can turn and revert to their old side. I wonder if this chance increases with the number of uncroacked units.

[hajo]

I tend to agree, but we know that units uncroacked by pliers, can turn and revert to their old side.

That should be no problem, once that side is extinct.

[ryuplaneswalker]

I tend to agree, but we know that units uncroacked by pliers, can turn and revert to their old side. I wonder if this chance increases with the number of uncroacked units.

That is why you don't send Decrypted against the sides they came from, a very wise and patient person with the pliers could do some really frightening things if you think about it, use foolamancy to veil Decrypted units to look like the side they came from..attack another side..kick off a war between them, sweep in once both sides are weakened and mop up, would only work once or twice but once or twice is all you really need.

[Legato Endless]

The other issue is 30-40 Dwagons really isn't enough on the scale we are talking about. 40 Dwagons are enough to make your side formidable, but we've yet to see any non caster unit wreak regional havoc in small numbers. Charlie has a lot more Archons, but by all accounts isn't satisfied with his current army. First, the sheer size of Erfworld means a small army won't be able to adequately respond to everything once the size gets huge. Second, we've already seen a strike force that size fight, and they didn't dominate the attle they were in, despite a dance bonus and the presumed hammer bonus. Translyvito was a powerful side with a great mercenary, but it was only one side. A few dozen dwagons on their own won't cut it against a well oiled alliance, which is what such behavior would inevitably provoke.

[TheStranger]

The major issue is not unit upkeep, but rather city upkeep...

I agree that city upkeep and the diminishing returns from too many cities are issues. The ideal "world conquest" setup is probably a modest number of cities (whatever maximizes production and/or income) combined with enough upkeep-free units to raze every other city in Erfworld. Since decrypted cost nothing, retain all their abilities, and last indefinitely, you can take however long you need to build a ludicrously large force (which is what you'd need to burn over 200 sides to the ground). It's gamey and unsubtle, but it seems like it would work.

I tend to agree, but we know that units uncroacked by pliers, can turn and revert to their old side. I wonder if this chance increases with the number of uncroacked units.

It's certainly possible that decrypted units have some weaknesses we haven't seen yet. I don't see Ossomer turning as indicative of a weakness, though - that seemed like an extraordinary event. The mere possibility of Ossomer turning was the twist, and I don't think we'll see decrypted units defecting left and right. Ossomer turned in a situation that put him completely at odds with his prior values, combined with a fair amount of haranguing about it; simply attacking his old side probably wouldn't do it, and no other former Jetstone unit turned. If it were easy to turn a decrypted unit, Ansom wouldn't be attacking Jillian right now.

I'm fully prepared to eat my words when the next update reveals that the shackles were fading because Ansom turned to FAQ, though.

[The Glyphstone]

Maybe in a neutral hex, friendly mounts count as friendly territory? So Ansom's shackles disappear because he is attacking Jillian, who is currently 'mounted' on Stanley's dwagon - by leaving the megalogwiff and becoming a mounted unit on the dwagon as well, Ansom becomes automatically repatriated?

[Math_Mage]

Maybe in a neutral hex, friendly mounts count as friendly territory? So Ansom's shackles disappear because he is attacking Jillian, who is currently 'mounted' on Stanley's dwagon - by leaving the megalogwiff and becoming a mounted unit on the dwagon as well, Ansom becomes automatically repatriated?

The relevant question is whether Ansom counts as 'stacked' with Stanley. To which I eloquently answer, "Uhhhhhh."

[Killer Angel]

That should be no problem, once that side is extinct.

That is why you don't send Decrypted against the sides they came from, a very wise and patient person with the pliers could do some really frightening things if you think about it, use foolamancy to veil Decrypted units to look like the side they came from..attack another side..kick off a war between them, sweep in once both sides are weakened and mop up, would only work once or twice but once or twice is all you really need.

True. I'm just trying to making up some hypothesis about possible, still unknown weaknesses of the pliers.

[Aquillion]

The major issue is not unit upkeep, but rather city upkeep...

I don't think there is a city upkeep; you just get diminishing returns the more cities you have, while you have to pay the upkeep of the troops you need to defend them. Eventually you get too big and your forces are spread too thin. That's why Haffaton was able to become huge -- it relied on upkeep-free undead and plant units.

[Mando Knight]

There has to be diminishing returns on income in order for this to work, of course, or aggressively scaling upkeep costs.

Otherwise, a large side has a much easier time funding both an invasion army and strong defenses than a smaller side: the controlled area grows roughly proportionally to the square of the perimeter, and if each amount of controlled area (such as roughly evenly placed cities within the area) produces the same amount of resources as each other, the side's economy will quickly outpace the growth of the size of the perimeter they need patrolled, allowing funds to be diverted towards impenetrable city garrisons and/or unstoppable invasion forces. Thus, an aggressive side with a large economy would be able to ball out of control even without an economy hack item like the Pliers.

[ryuplaneswalker]

There has to be diminishing returns on income in order for this to work, of course, or aggressively scaling upkeep costs.

There is both however, the larger your empire the smaller you get per city..and the higher cost your higher level troops are.

Erfworld is technically a beautifully designed thing for what the titans wanted it to do.

[NEO|Phyte]

They wouldn't need Parson to break everything if the system was weak enough to break on its own.

[HalfTangible]

That is why you don't send Decrypted against the sides they came from, a very wise and patient person with the pliers could do some really frightening things if you think about it, use foolamancy to veil Decrypted units to look like the side they came from..attack another side..kick off a war between them, sweep in once both sides are weakened and mop up, would only work once or twice but once or twice is all you really need.

Jillian noted in her prologue story that when a side attacks you, you're aware of who they are. Haffaton, once attacked, knew that a side called Faq had sacked them.

[Aquillion]

There has to be diminishing returns on income in order for this to work, of course, or aggressively scaling upkeep costs.

Diminishing returns on income are extremely common in these sorts of games in order to make it harder for one person to easily get a runaway victory.

[Mando Knight]

Jillian noted in her prologue story that when a side attacks you, you're aware of who they are. Haffaton, once attacked, knew that a side called Faq had sacked them.

On the other hand, magic is the exception to the rules.

On the other other hand, if Jack could veil a stack of Decrypted to create a false-flag operation, I'm pretty sure Parson or Ansom would've thought of ordering such an attack.

[Fjolnir]

cities and value and why patrolling matters

[ryuplaneswalker]

Jillian noted in her prologue story that when a side attacks you, you're aware of who they are. Haffaton, once attacked, knew that a side called Faq had sacked them.

well, it is Foolamancy so it might fool everything with a powerful enough Mancer.

or screw it

CarnyFoolmancy linkup time!

[Killer Angel]

They wouldn't need Parson to break everything if the system was weak enough to break on its own.

We're talking about arkentools, so a kind of power given directly by the Gods.
And you must be attuned to it: when Parson was summoned, the pliers were in the hands of Ansom, and their real power was unknown.
For example, thanks to arkendish, Charlie is one of the most powerful beings in all Erfworld.

So yeah, Arkentools tend to break the game (even if not totally)

[Killer Angel]

bump the thread because of NEW UPDATE!!!

and... wow!

[TheStranger]

bump the thread because of NEW UPDATE!!!

and... wow!

Spoiler

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Wow indeed. Is this going to break Wanda all over again? Is she going to rush out to decrypt Jillian? How creepy is Wanda/Jillian playtime if Jillian doesn't have free will? Or will my prediction about them landing in a lake come true? Tune in next week, same Erf-time, same Erf-channel!