Parson's Klog, Page 3

[Caledonian]

But there's a good chance that he is the perfect warlord for a turn based strategy. I mean, hell, I play a decent game of Starcraft, doesn't mean I should be put in charge of US operations in Bagdhad. That would just end in tears.

And it's entirely possible that a strategic mind capable of coping with Iraq would have problems dealing with a turn-based game he'd never seen before.

Erfworld IS Parson's area of expertise. It may not be an expertise that would be considered useful in the normal Earthworld, but it's no less hard-won or extensive for that.

[Tzomg]

Parson is supposed to be a "tactical genius" - this comic is designed to pander to the greasiest nerds (which I appreciate) - but of course it's basically impossible to make a protagonist with a featured point of view a legit genius, because presumably the writer doesn't have transcendent expertise in whatever the guy is supposed to be a genius about. Genius at war nerdery is an especially bad pick because half the internet thinks of itself as a liger-riding warrior-poet, master of all the arts of war and battle, and will call you on any misstep real or imagined.

[Dark]

Even though he makes attempts at humility, he clearly states that he's been studying "asymmetrical warfare" for a while now, so again, we are made to believe that Parson knows wtf he's talking about. Then, in this comic, we are given direct evidence to the contrary.

Keep in mind that he hasn't been studying military history or theory. He's specificallly been studying battles like Gobwin's Knob, and not by reading about them but by trying them out. He's never claimed more than that. It's within expectations for him to have a good practical grasp of how it goes, but not know what words to use to describe it.

As for why he made references to military history in the first place... he probably gets a confidence boost from thinking he knows his stuff in that area, and hey, he's all alone in a new universe. It's not like anyone's going go argue with him about it, or even read over his shoulder.

[Windup]

Parson doesn't have to sound like a genuine military genius, he just has to sound good enough to fool me, a guy who watches the History Channel once in a while.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: In addition to my usual admonition to be civil and abide by the Rules of Posting, I'd like to remind you all that discussions of real world politics are an Inappropriate Topic on this board. The historical stuff is borderline, but any discussion of modern political/military reality is likely to garner an Infraction and probably get the thread locked, too. Please avoid both the politics and the flaming. Thanks.

[Scientivore]

Too bad Parson wasn't presented as a crime investigation game genius or a medical mystery game genius. The kind of geeks who would get worked up over inaccuracies in those genres must have total indignation exhaustion already, thanks to prime time TV.

[Dark]

And from Parson's point of view, there's not a lot point in discussing what you're going to do with your troops before you know what they can do. Turns and stats need to be high on the hit-list in terms of explanations, followed by maybe some basic unit description and what Parson expects them to be capable of.

Remember, Parson's had a review of the troops with Stanley, during which he made remarks that show he knows about the way they have turns. So I think he already has that information, it just hasn't been presented to us yet.

He probably doesn't have equal knowledge of the opposing troops, though.

[rob]

Mmm... I like this comic. I like the klog pages, insofar as they keep the story moving at a nice pace. I think if the authors showed us everything, it would be 4 months before we get to the battle. And Rob strikes me, aside from having a good name, as a person who won't give away stuff that would get in the way of the story in these Klog pages.

And I like the general brainstorming. Nitpicking about the details of the strategies, or the analogies he uses to articulate them, is silly. He's a good general if he accomplishes the mission and beats the enemy. If you think his ideas are idiotic, go to a brigade- or division-level decision brief (step 6 of the planning process, right after step 2 (come up with courses of action), step 3 (work out the 3 best), step 4 (come up with hypothetical enemy courses of action) and step 5 (wargame the two against each other)). The quality of this, as a step 2, is about par for the course.

It differs from military planning, in that it is nowhere near as detailed. But, we haven't gotten that far yet. In real life that's what commanders have staffs for (which weren't really formalized until Napoleon). And Parson, as a gamer, probably wouldn't be familiar with the level of detail of that modern plans have. I certainly wasn't.

And, BTW, spectheintro - most of the times I've heard Assymetric Warfare used in a military context, it's had a different meaning each time. Most people who use it just toss it around as a buzzword. His usage of it is about par for the course as well.

[Xerxos]

Er, you didn't get this out of Parson's attempts to find a "Magic Bullet" spell or figure out the "God Mode" of the game?

This is *exactly* what Parson is trying to do.

No, no.. "God Mode" is cheating. Using a spell in the intended way isn't exploiting.

Exploiting would be something like that:
- attack with a unit that doesn't allow retaliation
- use a spell to bring that unit & the spellcasting unit back in time to the beginning of the turn
- repeat till the enemy army is no more

(actual example from a game where you had cloaking ability(no retaliation, one use per fight only, decloacks when attacking) and a time travelling device(rests the ship to the beginning of the fight)- allowing the ship to decloack&attack, reset time,decloack&attack,....)

Exploiting is a way to use the rules to "break" the game but still stay within the rules. For this you need to know the rules by hard. Parson hasn't studied the rules (and magic system) hard enough.

To make a plan without knowing the rules in detail seems foolish to me. Especially when he has all the time he wants (turn based...)

Bad strategist.

[Hydro]

I find these to be surprisingly entertaining.

I'm also happy that this sort of information isn't cluttering up the comic. Good idea all around.

[innovan]

Stalingrad? I'd love to see Andsome try the minedog strategy: The Soviets trained a bunch of starving dogs that food was to be found under tanks, and then strapped anti-tank mines on to said trained dogs backs, intending them to crawl under the German tanks, trigger the mines, and destroy them.

Unfortunately, the Russians only had Russian tanks available for training, the dogs didn't recognise the German tanks as places to crawl under for food. So the Russian minedogs went for the Russian tanks as they were trained ...and hilarity ensued.

Which is why I hope Andsome trys it instead. Maybe with luckless elves.

[tomaO2]

I don't get what all the booping is about.

We all know that learning about moves, special abilities, bonuses and whatnot are important and Parson is obviously learning about those things (as is shown by page 2 of the Klog) but locking yourself into simply waiting for the siege is a REALLY bad idea.

I would have made that mistake and wouldn't I have felt like a moron if I found out that we could have gotten some help from the neighboring kingdom if only Stanly would apologize for breaking some antique that the other king owned?

What if Parson was able to talk to that barbarian woman and found out that if he was able to kill Stanly then the alliance would leave the rest of Gobwin Kob alone? I DID feel like a moron when I realized I was so focused on the coming fight I was not contemplating other ideas. You canNOT take ANYTHING for granted here.


This is exactly a Parson thing to do. A Parson that doesn't even take for granted that people have a bathroom in this world isn't going to assume he's stuck in a siege with no other options.

Perhaps he could free Jillian to do the assentation herself? What if he CAN parley Ansom's allies? Don't rule this junk out! Parson knows he's in a no win situation and, like James Kirk for that no-win Starfleet test, he may find that the only answer is to change the rules. Was diplomacy even an option in his gaming no-win situation? Was there a superweapon hidden?

I personally was impressed by this and it shows Parson working with all cylinders. you can nitpick about Stalengrad not being a siege all you want but that's useless nitpicking and pretty damn petty in my opinion. All your doing it trying to show how much "smarter" you are then Parson. It's easy to sit back and criticize when your life isn't on the line. He's 16 and you expect him to know all the details of WWII? Give me a break. How much did you know at that age?

I like it a lot PCclips.

PS. If you wanted parson to reply you could do like an interview section like I read on the comic Flipside or Misfile. You could even post it as a bonus strip after the Klogs are finished so that the forum is not used as an alternative areas of information like you wanted. You can call it "Ask Parson" or something.

[Thorizan]

You only left out one key part of Ender's Mantra:

Don't just hit them hard. Hit them so hard, they never get up again, so they can never come back and hurt you again.

Remember, Andrew Wiggin was Ender far before his fight with the Formics.

[Zeku]

On the first page, there is an incredibly irresponsible spoiler about Ender's Game. The largest plot device of the book is that the exact nature of the game is concealed until the end. If there was any person who hadn't read it yet, it is now partially ruined for them.

What was the point of even specifying that, except to flaunt some irrelevant knowledge?

[taraxia]

On the first page, there is an incredibly irresponsible spoiler about Ender's Game. The largest plot device of the book is that the exact nature of the game is concealed until the end. If there was any person who hadn't read it yet, it is now partially ruined for them.

What was the point of even specifying that, except to flaunt some irrelevant knowledge?

OMGOMGOMG! Darth Vader is Luke's father, too!

Sheesh. There needs to be a statute of limitations on spoilers. It's exactly the kind of reference I would make among my friends, on the reasonable assumption that if you're a geek you know what Ender's Game is about. (You know what else "spoils" the ending of Ender's Game? Talking about the plot of any of the sequels, at all, because they all depend utterly on that final "twist".)

And it's not like it gives anything in particular away. The idea of attacking the enemy's capital or its leader and abandoning the supposed primary objective occurs in Ender's Game *way* before the climactic ending sequence -- remember when the Battle School leaders force him to fight two armies at once?

[pendejochy]

He's 16 and you expect him to know all the details of WWII? Give me a break. How much did you know at that age?

Actually, I thought he was in his 20s. It mentioned something about him wasting the money his parents gave him to use on college, so I figured he was somewhat around college going age, plus he seems to live alone.

[tomaO2]

Really?

I was sure I heard someone say 16 thought I have to admit he DOES seem to live on his own.

Anyone know how old Parson is?

[factotum]

Anyone know how old Parson is?

Erm...he's 24. It says quite clearly on the first page of his Klog that he was born December 7, 1982.

[Dark]

Sheesh. There needs to be a statute of limitations on spoilers.

There's that, but there's also the reasonable expectation that this reference in a webcomic will introduce a lot of new people to the book. You're not among friends who can all be expected to have read it.

The statute of limitations needs to have some notion of pervasiveness :)
With Star Wars (or King Kong), we can expect that everyone who wants to see it has seen it already, or at least knows the story. This goes for some books as well, such as Lord of the Rings. But Ender's Game is far more obscure than that. Even when there was a reference on xkcd last week, a supremely geeky forum, it turned out that lots of people hadn't heard of it.

Even if you despise them for not having read it already, isn't it better to introduce them to it now, and avoid spoiling it for them?

[pendejochy]

Erm...he's 24. It says quite clearly on the first page of his Klog that he was born December 7, 1982.

Well, sure that is when he was born, but how do we know when the story takes place? Or did the story establish that it is taking place on 2007? I might have missed that part.^^;;

[Walpurgisborn]

Well, sure that is when he was born, but how do we know when the story takes place? Or did the story establish that it is taking place on 2007? I might have missed that part.^^;;

Well on the first Parson page (pg 14), there was a reference to IE7, so that would put the absolute earliest date as late 2006.

[happyturtle]

I don't think books published over twenty years ago deserve spoiler status. I know there are people who hadn't been born then who might not have read it, but that's life. I didn't get to read Asimov and Heinlein unspoiled, and kids who are just learning to read today will have the ending of Harry Potter 7 spoiled before they are able to pick up HP1. Luckily there are plenty of creative minds producing wonderful fiction (Like Erfworld and OOTS ) so that we all have unspoiled stories to enjoy.

(But if it's any consolation, I picked up Ender's Game at the library when it was newly published years ago and had the ending spoiled by the book jacket blurb. I still enjoyed reading it though. (In fact, I'm a little sad that my copy is in my mom's attic several thousand miles away, but oh well.))

[Wardog]

It is not yet clear from the visible game mechanics what sort of combat will be involved. For example, the defining weapon of the "modern" period is the rifle and mini ball, which rendered mounted combat---which had been important for eight hundred years---completely obsolete (except for dragoon tactics, of course).

Minor nitpick:

Rifles didn't render cavalry obsolete.

They made certain forms of mounted combat obsolete or less effective, and meant cavalry often operated as mounted infantry (I presume that is what you mean by dragoon tactics).

But until the development of reliable armoured vehicles, there were certain things that could often only be done with cavalry. (E.g. scouting, harrying the enemy, certain shock tactics, policing the colonies, etc).

Sometimes when attacking defensive positions (artillery, or even machine guns) cavalry were preferable to infantry, because they could get there quicker, and so spent less time in the open being shot at.

The first British engagement of WWI was a skirmish between British cavalry and German lancers. Once trench warfare became the norm, cavalry became mostly useless, but there were still occasions where they had their use. (I learnt recently that cavalry was supposed to be used at the Somme, to reinforce the infantry once they had reached the enemy trenches. Due to lack of communication, the generals thought the infantry attack had failed, and so never sent the reinforcements. This was one of the reasons that there were so few gains made).

And in the closing stages of the war, once the German trenches had been overcome, the war became much more mobile, and cavalry once more was used in its "proper" role. (But pretty much for the last time, as we now had tanks and armoured cars that could do the same job better).

[Dark]

But if it's any consolation, I picked up Ender's Game at the library when it was newly published years ago and had the ending spoiled by the book jacket blurb.

Yeah, I hate it when that happens. In my experience there are two kinds of blurbs: those that give away most of the plot, and those that have nothing to do with the book.

Once I found one where it was clear that the blurb author had read just the first chapter and extrapolated from there; the book itself changed directions at chapter two.

Due to all this I've stopped reading blurbs years ago. Sometimes when I finish a book I'll read the back cover just to get a dose of indignation.

I tend to evaluate books by scanning the first few pages, these days. Just to see if I like the writing style and the printing. But even then I have to beware of spoilers in the half-page excerpt that some books have among the title pages.

Oddly, I don't mind when movie trailers explain the plot. Instead, I feel grateful that now I don't have to go watch the movie, since the trailer (a) collected all the coolest action shots and (b) summarized the plot for me. Makes it much easier to keep up with new releases ;)

[Scientivore]

Oddly, I don't mind when movie trailers explain the plot. Instead, I feel grateful that now I don't have to go watch the movie, since the trailer (a) collected all the coolest action shots and (b) summarized the plot for me. Makes it much easier to keep up with new releases ;)

Actually, that's part of why I stopped watching TV. It's not that I wanted to watch movies unspoiled; I only watch them on DVD anyway, if at all. The problem is with all of the mass-market mutilation porn[1] that's been put out lately. I don't want to watch those movies at all and the trailers made me feel like I'd already seen them. I started maintaining constant vigilance with the remote just to keep from being ambushed and mind-booped, and that was no fun at all.

[1] That's pornography as in "obscenely explicit depiction". It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex, although I've noticed that mutilation porn typically includes some kind of nudity and/or woman-in-jeopardy element.

[happyturtle]

Comedy movie trailers are the worst, because you end up hearing the same three jokes over and over and over, and then it turns out those are the only good ones in the movie.

Oh, who am I kidding... I just generally hate movies. Let me have the book... it's better worth watching in my head!

[innovan]

Rifles didn't render cavalry obsolete.

There was a coordinated cavalry charge by mixed US and local troops in Afghanistan last year that was quite effective. So even machine guns and shoulder mounted rockets don't render cavalry obsolete.

[Wardog]

There was a coordinated cavalry charge by mixed US and local troops in Afghanistan last year that was quite effective. So even machine guns and shoulder mounted rockets don't render cavalry obsolete.

Interesting.

I hadn't heard about that one. But I did read an article in National Geographic (pre-9/11) about a northern Afgan tribe that was in conflict against the then-ruling Taliban.

This tribe (they were very proud of their apparent decent from some of Ghengis Khan's) made extensive - and very effective - use of horses, even against tanks.

Apparently, one of the most important traits of a modern cavalry horse is that it is deaf, so the rider can fire an AK47 or RPG without scaring it.

One of the big advantages of horses, at least in that part of Afganistan, was that they could move over rough ground faster and more easily than motor vehicles, giving the cavalry a big advantage in mobility, and allowing effective hit-and-run attacks.

A typical technique would be to use terrain to conceal their movement and enable them to get close to the Taliban, then at the last moment pop out over a hill, blast a tank with a few RPGs, and then retreat before the Taliban could effectively retaliate.

Also, apparently, horses are quite good for crossing mine fields, because the rider is high enough off the ground (and shielded by the horses body) to be reasonably safe from exploding mines. ( )