Erfworld 44 Parson's Klog Page 4

[mirrorshades]

Or maybe in this world that still hasn't invented basic plumbing, anything more advanced than its current age doesn't have stats because it's not recognised in the item table. So if Parson were to introduce molotov cocktails, they would doubly have the advantage of surprise as well, having no stats.

Actually, many strategic-level wargames have the idea of technological research and development; if that is the case here, then it's pretty unlikely that Parson would just be able to put together something on its own and use it straight away. We have seen that in some ways, he is bound to the rules of the game; thus, even if he grabbed a bottle with alcohol and stuck a rag in it, I think that the units wouldn't be able to figure out how it was used unless it came through the "official" game channels.

[jindra34]

Actually, many strategic-level wargames have the idea of technological research and development; if that is the case here, then it's pretty unlikely that Parson would just be able to put together something on its own and use it straight away. We have seen that in some ways, he is bound to the rules of the game; thus, even if he grabbed a bottle with alcohol and stuck a rag in it, I think that the units wouldn't be able to figure out how it was used unless it came through the "official" game channels.

Yeah but that doesn't mean parson couldn't use a molatov-coctail...

[Scientivore]

There were many reasons why Parson was summoned instead of one of his gaming buddies, including that they weren't obsessive losers who wanted out. Here, this comes up so much that I've transcribed the whole dialogue of Page 17 for us.

Wanda: "The spell is cast, Lord. I have only to concentrate on the target and speak the trigger word."

Stanley: "Okay, listen...
"I want a big guy.
"Big, dashing, handsome, heroic...
"...a guy who'll shock and awe them, just standing on the city walls, commanding the fight."

Wanda: "I thought we agreed I was looking for the perfect military mind.
"A strategic genius, not an ornament."

Stanley: "I want that too!
"Now think. I want a guy who's commanded all different kinds of battles.
"I want him to be obsessed with war. Somebody who plans wars and kills his foes for fun.
"I want a guy who snacks on gwiffons and eats Marbits for BREAKFAST!
"And I know the spell will bind him to serve me, but I don't want a morale case. Get me somebody who actually wants to be summoned."

Wanda: "Yes Lord."

Stanley: "And don't screw up the basics, either.
"He's gotta speak Language. Breathe the air and things.
"Everything should seem familiar and safe to him. No crazy surprises."

Wanda: "Lord, it's difficult...
"I...I am not a Findamancer!
"I was looking for a mind! All these physical requirements are too much, I-"

Stanley: "Oh all right, find your genius. Just make him BIG, okay?
"Can you do that much, Commander?"

Wanda: "Thank you, Lord.
"...I have him...
""Scruby!""

Effect: PLOT

[SteveMB]

About Wanda: Parson thinks she knows something about combat but tries to hide it. She also tells Sizemore that she isn't really interested in any sort of magic other than croakomancy, but she obviously enjoys controlling Jillian, at least partially assisted by magic that seems rather unlike croakomancy. And, of course, summoning Parson was her idea in the first place.

Do you get the impression that Wanda may be pretty self-directed herself, and has bigger plans than merely helping Stanley on to victory? I suspect she knows what Parson is capable of doing better than Parson does -- he responded to *her* summons, and she probably added a few requirements that Stanley didn't think of.

I tend to agree with the conclusion (i.e. I think it's more likely than not that Wanda has some hidden agenda), but not these particular arguments.

The fact that Wanda enjoys controlling Jillian (meaning either the result of Jillian being under her control, or the process of breaking her) doesn't necessarily mean that she enjoyed every step (e.g. using non-Croakamancy magicks) of the work. (An analogy: I like getting a paycheck, and in general I like my job. However, some parts of my job are annoying and frustrating.)

When she got the idea to summon the perfect warlord, she clearly expected Stanley to pay for the full package (i.e. somebody else would do the actual summoning), and was rather dismayed when that turned out not to be the case. As for extra requirements in the summoning spell to suit Wanda's purposes -- it's possible, but given the difficulty she was clearly having it just doesn't seem all that likely (especially since, as I noted, she didn't originally plan to be the one casting the spell).

[ziggurat]

Stanley can't be the Chief Warlord, he's busy being the Overlord. I imagine you can only occupy one rank at a time. Stanley seems like the kind of guy who would just do the warlord job himself if he could

I think I might have an idea what Parson's benefit is. Since a Warlord being present in a stack dictates to a large degree what decisions that stack is in fact capable of making (eg to attack or not) having Parson in a stack might mean that his stack is capable of deciding to move out of turn. Unlike Erfworld units, even the high ranked ones, Parson has a mostly-free will. He isn't constrained to either the idea, nor the mental laws of turn-based living.

That's entirely postulative of course.

In Warlords II, I believe +2 was actually the best a Warlord could have without magical items.

Yes. This.

[Kanthalion]

Yes. This.

Confuses. Me.

[Gez]

Even if Erfworld mechanics don't distinguish properly between flying and ground units (so that the presence of the former blocks the space for the latter), Parson didn't exactly say that no more than 8 units can stack, just that the stacking bonus maxes out at 8. (In fact, unless Dora doesn't count as a "unit", there are actually 9 in Sir Webinar's backup squad.)

Maybe the Dora-on-her-mount counts as one unit rather than two, and likewise for Webinar. In that case, there's actually seven units in the stack.

That said, such a bug in Erfworld mechanics could have implications. (e.g. If a leaderless ground unit tries to move underneath a non-allied flying unit, do they still have to attack, even if they're on terrain where they can't attack flyers? If so, what happens then?)

Presumably, if they can't attack, they don't attack. If they can, they do.

I think the more likely implication is that Parson's bonus applies to more units. Stanley can apply his bonus to a stack (like a group of 7 dragons?), but even though Parson my have a smaller bonus, it applies to every unit that belongs to Gobwin Knob (his Capital). I don't think it actually matters where the units are, as long as they belong to the Gobwin Knob army (in other words, they don't actually have to be in the Capital to count as the Capital's troops).

I'm not sure Stanley himself has a bonus. As the overlord, his role in such a game is more like that of the player's personna (rather than character), he's the one who makes the decisions and every unit, including the commanders, is directed by him. If you see Erfworld this way, then Wanda is the part of the software that advised the player to use a "bot", a warlord with an actual AI able to play in his place... And that this bot is a real person is just ironic.

COuld be but if that was the case why did Wanda end up disobeying him... and why did the spell not pick out one of Parson's friends because they probably had similar stategic knowledge but better looks?

People have pointed out the many reasons why Parson fitted the bill better than all the other players. He's the biggest, the most obsessed by the game, he literally snacks on gwiffons, and he's the one who is willing to be summoned... The willingness is probably the most important point, though, I think. (To borrow a concept from RPG games, Parson automatically failed his saving throw.)

This came up on the Erfworld Battlefield Layout thread -- I'm pretty sure it's a "distance rulers" game with a fairly fine base measuring unit, because if (X -1214, Y +455) represents coordinates on a system where each unit is one square or hex, the map would be rather impractical.

I think these coordinates are for a single square on the map. And the map is just very huge because it's the whole world, rather than just a part of it.

[SteveMB]

I think these coordinates are for a single square on the map. And the map is just very huge because it's the whole world, rather than just a part of it.

Hmmm... if the map covering the whole Gobwin Knob battlefield doesn't necessarily include the zero-zero point (with other battlefields having coordinate numbers that show where they are relative to each other), that makes sense. (For example, the Gobwin Knob battlefield might cover an area something like X -1200 to -1400, Y +400 to +600, which could be manageable if each unit represents a square/hex; the Warchalking battlefield might cover some other region in same overall coordinate system, like X +400 to +600, Y 0 to -200; et cetera.)

[Andiri]

An analogy: I like getting a paycheck, and in general I like my job. However, some parts of my job are annoying and frustrating.

Perhaps, but I don't think so. She *really* wanted to interrogate her, and was surprised (and, I think disappointed) when Jillian wanted to do things "the easy way". Also, she used mind control on the guard, when she probably could have done things differently (for example, she could have assigned a zombie to guard the door).

I think she's trying to keep people from realizing that she is as much a ... thinkomancer? as a croakamancer. Mind control works better when people aren't aware you're doing it.

When she got the idea to summon the perfect warlord, she clearly expected Stanley to pay for the full package

Maybe. Tool is pretty easy to manipulate. I think it's likely she knew before he opened his mouth exactly what sort of response she'd get to "we can do it, but it will cost every last schmucker you have in the treasury."

[nooblade]

Well everyone seems to think that Stanley is a simple-minded, psychopathic, easily manipulated kind of person but I'm sure he has his fair share of surprizes. He was cracking walnuts at first, though.

Spoiler

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You should be able to guess this... The walnut-cracking pigeon-making power of the Arkenhammer will seriously effect the outcome of the Battle for Godwin Knob

I also haven't heard anyone mention the thought that Parson's upkeep could be extremely expensive--we still don't know exactly how much a shmucker is worth. Though the upkeep is around 1000 of them and the cost to summon him was easily 30 times that(too lazy to check), paying it once a day could add up. Theories have gone around that the cheapest kind of unit, maybe the marbit axemen or the goblin spear-troops, are each worth 1 shmucker. There could be a cheap upgrade or perhaps 1 shmucker is the cost for upkeeping a cheap unit for one day. Stanley might've had a considerable stash of resources. Other factors could have limited his ability to spend it for a strategical advantage.

He could well be one of the shrewd types of players who tries to win by using the least amount of money possible. I could see how that would fit into his personality, plus he's kinda greedy. He could've been saving up for the best kind of upgrade in the game, or because the Arkenhammer becomes more powerful because of something related to money, or because he can summon more dragons with huge amounts of excess money. Considering the nature of dragons, that would explain the extra reasonably well. Another factor might be that having more money in "the bank" generates interest that Stanley can live off of, instead of having to resort to the usual means for generating money.

I also find it hard to believe that he could've killed whoever was leader before him without a considerable amount of skill playing the game. It would explain the multitude of his losses--he "micros" with only one warlord at a time while common players shell out more money for at least 3-4. He could also be spending a lot of money to keep Wanda around, which has proved valuable even if she is trying to pull something behind his back.

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But what could Wanda do in the game? She probably couldn't kill him while he has the Arkenhammer, which is likely why he feels very safe around her, along with whatever makes her obey most orders. I think that Stanley's "level" is higher because he keeps more advanced kinds of units and support around than Ansom and his coalition. Ansom previously thought he could win through sheer numbers, and now he thinks he can win because Stanley is incapable of getting a warlord through normal means. Stanley's higher level abilities might be less useful without a good warlord.

What I want to know is, was Ansom even in charge of the Marbit Axemen who killed Manpower?

All in all, Stanley would be dead by now if he didn't know what he was doing.

And another thing: garrisoned units can't move until they're ungarrisoned. That was from Age of Empires.

[ajkkjjk52]

Bogroll's stats say Combat, but the Klog says that the stat is Attack. Which is it?

[Erk]

It's your mom, that's what it is.

Good spotting and question. Let's call the author. ROOOOOOBBBB!!!!

[mirrorshades]

Yeah but that doesn't mean parson couldn't use a molatov-coctail...

Either way... at 350k plus upkeep, Parson is *waaaay* too expensive to be on the front lines fighting. My guess is that Stanley will keep him safely in the situation room, or perhaps standing on the wall overlooking the city and battle (as mentioned during the summoning).

[mirrorshades]

Bogroll's stats say Combat, but the Klog says that the stat is Attack. Which is it?

I would go with Bogroll's display for the "official" names of the stats. Since Parson didn't capitalize them in his klog, my guess is that he's just referring to them informally, more of a description than an explicit declaration.

Witness this again -- Bogroll's display says "Special", but Parson calls it "natural abilities".

[nothingclever]

The one basis for a scale we have is that Stanley considers Parson's +2 leader bonus to be poor. That suggests that base values of 5 and 4 aren't terribly impressive -- that's presumably about equal to the leadership bonus of a middling-to-good leader unit.

I'm not sure if someone already said this since I haven't read the entire thread yet but I'd bet Bogroll has good stats since he's a very large and muscular despite being fat. Also he's a troll and trolls are usually really strong in any game and regeneration might mean he can revive when dead/almost dead or that he regenerates hitpoints each round or slowly over time. Any would be good.

I'm sure dragons are way stronger though and he probably has poor move meaning he has to be used carefully to really benefit. I could definitely see him clobbering those elves like it was nothing.

[jindra34]

Either way... at 350k plus upkeep, Parson is *waaaay* too expensive to be on the front lines fighting. My guess is that Stanley will keep him safely in the situation room, or perhaps standing on the wall overlooking the city and battle (as mentioned during the summoning).

He could throw it from the walls we do not know how good of an arm he has... (i will admit he probably has a crappy one but hey fun to speculate)

[innovan]

Spoiler

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You should be able to guess this... The walnut-cracking pigeon-making power of the Arkenhammer will seriously effect the outcome of the Battle for Godwin Knob

Man, I hate spoilers. Because then you can only respond in a spoiler.

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Well, Bogroll's Pigeon and Walnut pie on p37 would be a "Food of the Gods" and might attune those who eat it closer to the Arkentools --or give them the ability to sense the location of a new Arkentool previously unknown.

Because we know the Ultimate Arkentool "to unite them all" will be the ToolBench.

Let's just hope it's not the "Playskool Cool Crew Talkin' Tool Bench"


Which had to be recalled after it caused the death of two toddlers who ate the nails.
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06266.html
Although some blame "stupid careless parent" syndrome
http://www.slobokan.com/archives/200...tupid-parents/

[Scientivore]

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Because we know the Ultimate Arkentool "to unite them all" will be the ToolBench.

I like the way you think! Except,

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I think that a toolbelt is more likely. It would be more portable and would fit the "bind them" meme better. Arkentoolbelt FTW!

[SteveMB]

Perhaps, but I don't think so. She *really* wanted to interrogate her, and was surprised (and, I think disappointed) when Jillian wanted to do things "the easy way". Also, she used mind control on the guard, when she probably could have done things differently (for example, she could have assigned a zombie to guard the door).

I think she's trying to keep people from realizing that she is as much a ... thinkomancer? as a croakamancer. Mind control works better when people aren't aware you're doing it.

Possible (and it would fit with Parson's impression that she knows more than she lets on about military matters), but rather speculative.

Maybe. Tool is pretty easy to manipulate. I think it's likely she knew before he opened his mouth exactly what sort of response she'd get to "we can do it, but it will cost every last schmucker you have in the treasury."

I don't think that fits her reactions -- if her expression and body language in 6/10-6/12 are how she looks when she's just put one over on Stanley, I'd hate to see what she looks like when she's annoyed about something. (Also, compare to 20/13, when she seems to realize that Parson has just put one over on the newly-so-called Tool.)

[Rocheforte]

Spoiler

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You should be able to guess this... The walnut-cracking pigeon-making power of the Arkenhammer will seriously effect the outcome of the Battle for Godwin Knob

Spoiler

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Nothing about the Arkenhammer is at all important anymore. The sole purpose of the Arkenhammer was to give a background reason for Stanley to have been paying attention to something other than defending his stuff properly. It's a McGuffin. Ever see the original movie "Psycho"? All the speculation about the Hammer is like spending the whole movie arguing over the cash in Marion's trunk.

Now, the Arkenpliars might not be McGuffins - we won't know until/unless the cast page gets updated.

[kabbor]

There were many reasons why Parson was summoned instead of one of his gaming buddies, including that they weren't obsessive losers who wanted out. Here, this comes up so much that I've transcribed the whole dialogue of Page 17 for us.

So, eliminating "All these physical requirements", we have:


Stanley: "...
"Now think. I want a guy who's commanded all different kinds of battles.
"I want him to be obsessed with war. Somebody who plans wars and kills his foes for fun.
"I want a guy who snacks on gwiffons and eats Marbits for BREAKFAST!
"... Get me somebody who actually wants to be summoned."

Wanda: "Yes Lord."

Stanley: "...
"Everything should seem familiar and safe to him. No crazy surprises."

Wanda: "..."

Stanley: "Oh all right, find your genius. Just make him BIG, okay?
"Can you do that much, Commander?"

And we have a description of Lord Hamster.