Erfworld 66: page 60

[damphir92]

HI, how yall doin?

[RedTopHat]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0041.html

I think the odds are for the strike on Ansom himself. In Parson's third klog he mentions it as the Ender-styled move. If we use this list as a base we can see he has already implemented a type of counterattack, and used Jillian with the subtle control.

[BarGamer]

I agree with most of what you guys said: Parson is going to have to learn how to manipulate Stanley in order to keep winning. And Ansom is not the Supreme Commander, King Slately is. If I were in Parson's place, I would give Stanley a choice:

"We can either get Ansom and the Arkenpliars now, lose lots of dwagons and whatever warlords we sent in, and POSSIBLY have the siege breakup, or we can utterly wipe out the siege, and have Ansom CRAWLING ON HIS KNEES to give them to you, to spare his life. Which we won't. Probably give him to Wanda, and interrogate him. Force King Slately to surrender. If you're worried about that huge "losing streak" earlier, we'll make it back when we take out the siege. "


Also, I just can't stop beating on this uncroaked horse:

so... Fatman and Wobin?

*Cues theme song.* FATMAN! FATMAN! Fatmaaaan.

NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM-FAAAAAMAAAAAN!

*Runs away!*

[DavidByron]

I wonder if all the analysis that tries to figure out what the exact rules of Erfworld are, can be compared to trying to figure out eg, the exact levels of the PCs in OOTs.

It's a story first, not a game. Predicting what is going to happen should be based on the rules of story telling not the rules of fantasy turn based games. There may not be a single consistent set of rules that Erfworld uses in the same way that the PCs in OOTs are not of any one consistent level. Instead the story just uses turn based fantasy game cliches as background.

There are various problems with trying to calculate a single consistent set of rules for Erfworld. Oxymorons I suppose you could say, or contradictions. I am not sure if these have been talked to death already, and no doubt you can always concoct a set of exceptions and rules to explain these situations but for example,

How fast can leaders move? The uncroaked warlords Parson uses seem to have huge movement - far more even than dragons, but suddenly Ansom and Vinnie are stuck in a trap and have no movement left even though they can both fly. This makes sense as a story device, but not as a rule.

How easy is it to kill warlords? Stanley has uncroaked at least five warlords which implies they all died and subsequently their bodies were retrieved. That suggests that the warlords died while the hex they were in remained controlled by Stanley. If killing warlords is that easy why couldn't Stanley have selectively attacked Ansom with a big dwagon stack ages ago?

Can you move attack, move attack in one turn? This has happened several times but such rules make the idea of a fort structure of six hexes void. A fort structure is used to stop the attacker when the rules say one move and one attack. Similarly the concept of a pincer attack is invalid when combat takes place within one hex. It is a concept that comes from games where the hexes are tactical sizes and a single unit fills one hex and attacks into adjacent hexes.

The rules about what is know to Ansom and how he can issue commands would have to be unlike any turn based game I've ever seen. Ansom apparently doesn't know the results of battles automatically and he cannot issue commands automatically -- things which happen in every actual turn based hex game. I don't even know of real-time computer games that give you a fog of war so complete it covers the results of combat you initiated or the location of pieces you are moving.

Apart from the rules, some "realistic" considerations are put aside in the interests of the storyline. For example it is clear that Ansom's lack of Lookamancers is a nearly crippling defect and there seems to be no reason he cannot just hire a Lookamancer, especially as his alliance consists of many different groups -- surely one of them could hire a Lookamancer?

Again there have been some disputes over the exact numbers of troops on both sides. Some have pointed to the rules about a maximum of just eight creatures on a squad and others have noted the illustrations where it seems thousands of creatures are present. It's a contradiction and that's fine because this is a story. Only the narrative has to be consistent.

What do the rules of story telling predict?

For one thing Parson will attack Ansom in the "pincer" because he's just said he will. Period. Not just in this strip either. Parson said he destroyed the siege units "for openers". That phrase said that he would do something else too and that thing would be qualitatively more plot-interesting. So it couldn't be just killing more siege units as logical as that sounds from a rules based analysis. That would be dull as story. We wouldn't go through half a dozen pages of explaining this move in minute detail if the only result was more of the same.

Having said that the attack on Ansom will probably partially fail for some reason. Why? Because Parson can't win every time. If he wins every time there's no suspense. And because the first arc of the story isn't due to end quite yet (is it?) Also we have the unresolved plot element that the Arkenpliers rule against the uncroaked. So Parson's going to boop-up partially, although it may be because of something outside his control such as Stanley. But he won't totally boop-up because then what was the point of all this narrative build-up about how clever he is? Parson is a genius but he is no Elvis. Therefore the results have to better than great but less than perfect.

So predictions? Ansom won't run away from the hex. All logic says he could but he won't. I suspect Ansom won't even attack another hex of B dwagons. That would be anticlimactic. He might try to do something with Jillian but that will likely fail because of Wanda's control. So Ansom sits there like a hero and gets hit. But the Arkenpliers effect on the uncroaked save him. He has to lose something significant though so I'm afraid it looks bad for Vinnie. Nothing else in that hex is going to save Parson from Stanely's unjustified wrath when he loses a bunch of dwagons except Ansom losing his only remaining scouting ability (the importance of Vinnie and his bats has been stressed repeatedly in the narrative).

On a rules basis I agree that dwagons are just so powerful against someone with no Lookamancers that there's no way Stanely could have lost ten cities. But in story terms we know that's not true and that Parson still has to pull something else out of the hat even when the alliance has zero scouting ability. The hints dropped so far suggest to me that Parson will force Ansom to make an attack through the tunnels so we can see what a Dirtamancer can do -- if for no other reason than Sizemore is a nice character who deserves to look competent even if just once. After that perhaps the alliance breaks up demoralised by the genius leadership of their new enemy (again in a real game if you have 25 production cities to the enemy's 1 city it's game over).

[Scientivore]

How fast can leaders move? The uncroaked warlords Parson uses seem to have huge movement - far more even than dragons, but suddenly Ansom and Vinnie are stuck in a trap and have no movement left even though they can both fly. This makes sense as a story device, but not as a rule.

That mechanic made sense to me. I've played TBS games where a humanoid unit on a separate mount (not a pre-mounted type like a cavalry unit) can continue as long the mount has move left, no matter if the rider's move hit zero long ago. The three uncroaked warlords were being constantly rotated onto relatively fresh mounts.

All of the rest sound like very good points to me.

[BourgeoisJerry]

While I agree with DavidByron that the story comes before the game, I don't agree that the rules are inconsistent. The rules are definitely there to support the story, not the other way around, but so far they seem to be pretty consistent with themselves.

How fast can leaders move? The uncroaked warlords Parson uses seem to have huge movement - far more even than dragons, but suddenly Ansom and Vinnie are stuck in a trap and have no movement left even though they can both fly. This makes sense as a story device, but not as a rule.

Somebody else already covered this.

How easy is it to kill warlords? Stanley has uncroaked at least five warlords which implies they all died and subsequently their bodies were retrieved. That suggests that the warlords died while the hex they were in remained controlled by Stanley. If killing warlords is that easy why couldn't Stanley have selectively attacked Ansom with a big dwagon stack ages ago?

Why do you think Stanley must have remained in control of the hexes where his warlords croaked? Ansom's forces are on the march, I don't think he'd leave behind a bunch of troops (it'd have to be a lot to defend against Stanley's dwagons) just to prevent Stanley from having one more uncroaked warlord.

Can you move attack, move attack in one turn? This has happened several times but such rules make the idea of a fort structure of six hexes void. A fort structure is used to stop the attacker when the rules say one move and one attack. Similarly the concept of a pincer attack is invalid when combat takes place within one hex. It is a concept that comes from games where the hexes are tactical sizes and a single unit fills one hex and attacks into adjacent hexes.

If the fort structure was designed for that purpose why would it have more than one dwagon per hex? I think the fort structure was originally intended to prevent the enemy from fighting through to the center hex (dwagons are strong enough that Ansom felt it necessary to go around and take on the 3 dwagons in the back, and even then he was a bit worried about the gumps not being fresh for when they got to the center hex.) Also, it's possible that there are flanking rules in the game. It's a bit odd, but it doesn't contradict anything we've been told so far.

The rules about what is know to Ansom and how he can issue commands would have to be unlike any turn based game I've ever seen. Ansom apparently doesn't know the results of battles automatically and he cannot issue commands automatically -- things which happen in every actual turn based hex game. I don't even know of real-time computer games that give you a fog of war so complete it covers the results of combat you initiated or the location of pieces you are moving.

This isn't a contradiction, it's just a matter of Erfworld mechanics not being the same as other turn based game. The rules are consistent within Erfworld.

Apart from the rules, some "realistic" considerations are put aside in the interests of the storyline. For example it is clear that Ansom's lack of Lookamancers is a nearly crippling defect and there seems to be no reason he cannot just hire a Lookamancer, especially as his alliance consists of many different groups -- surely one of them could hire a Lookamancer?

Not a mechanical contradiction, but it still makes at least a bit of sense. He could hire a Lookamancer if he thought it was important enough, but his scouting capabilities seem to be sufficient, at least when the enemy is Stanley.

Again there have been some disputes over the exact numbers of troops on both sides. Some have pointed to the rules about a maximum of just eight creatures on a squad and others have noted the illustrations where it seems thousands of creatures are present. It's a contradiction and that's fine because this is a story. Only the narrative has to be consistent.

If there's an inconsistency in the rules, this is it, but things are vague enough that you can't really declare the rules inconsistent yet. There's no rule limiting stacks to 8 units, there's just a maximum stack bonus of 8, which is why stacks tend to stop at 8.

[DavidByron]

Ansom's forces are on the march, I don't think he'd leave behind a bunch of troops (it'd have to be a lot to defend against Stanley's dwagons) just to prevent Stanley from having one more uncroaked warlord.

Well if I was going to make up a rule to explain the situation I think I'd go with claiming that you just don't need to recover the body to have a croakamancer raise dead.

And then someone else comes along and says well what about when Wanda has to carry Temporary to the city on the back of a dwagon? Instead of just summoning him in the city? And so on and on.

I'm not denying that with sufficient imagination any situation could be explained away or some semi-plausible set of rules calculated after the fact. What I am saying is that you can't predict the plot on the basis of such a set of rules because your idea of what the rules are, changes every time a new strip comes out

There's no doubt for example that two sets of rules could be imagined -- one where Ansom has the movement to get out of the trap and one where he doesn't. But an analysis of the rules alone just won't predict which is going to be true.

[Scientivore]

Oh, totally. I'm very curious to see which one it will be. I think that the big clue is that Ansom's Evel Knievel getup is like a Chekov's motorcycle on the stage and he hasn't fired off a dramatic stunt jump yet. (I'm sorry that I couldn't find who pointed that out to give credit.) At the same time, the story leads me to believe that Parson thinks that he can get Ansom, the Arkenpliers and the remaining siege units. There's definitely some dramatic tension there.

[PyritePyro]

Oh, totally. I'm very curious to see which one it will be. I think that the big clue is that Ansom's Evel Knievel getup is like a Chekov's motorcycle on the stage and he hasn't fired off a dramatic stunt jump yet. (I'm sorry that I couldn't find who pointed that out to give credit.) At the same time, the story leads me to believe that Parson thinks that he can get Ansom, the Arkenpliers and the remaining siege units. There's definitely some dramatic tension there.

Indeed, indeed. I can hardly wait for the Giant to upload the next installment! And the one that was scheduled to be done today. The anticipation is driving me nuts.

[Welf]

How easy is it to kill warlords? Stanley has uncroaked at least five warlords which implies they all died and subsequently their bodies were retrieved. That suggests that the warlords died while the hex they were in remained controlled by Stanley. If killing warlords is that easy why couldn't Stanley have selectively attacked Ansom with a big dwagon stack ages ago?

We don't know if he ever tried, we only know he never succeded. Maybe Stanley never thought of this possibility (although I don't like the Stanley-is-sooo-silly explanation). The exploit of Parson only works over Heavy threes, water and mountains. On normal landside the dwagons could be attacked by normal troops.
Maybe it's not that easy to selectivly attack units in a warlord led stack and Manpower was a random aim of the crossbows.

Again there have been some disputes over the exact numbers of troops on both sides. Some have pointed to the rules about a maximum of just eight creatures on a squad and others have noted the illustrations where it seems thousands of creatures are present. It's a contradiction and that's fine because this is a story. Only the narrative has to be consistent.

I don't see a reason why the column should consit of only one stack. There is no reason why the stacks schouldn't march in close formation. Stacks from the same alliance can occupy the same hex.

He might try to do something with Jillian but that will likely fail because of Wanda's control.

True in many ways.

[Vreejack]

Also, it's possible that there are flanking rules in the game. It's a bit odd, but it doesn't contradict anything we've been told so far.

Yes, it does. We know that Erfworld is a strategic war game with long moves and what Parson called "simple" rules. Stacks are moved one at a time and some units have 50+ move. Concerns like facing are irrelevant because units can change their facing instantaneously on the strategic map even when it is not their turn. Furthermore, scouts cannot even see what is in an adjacent hex. How can a unit be flanked on the strategic map by units that are too far away to be seen?

There are games that use flanking on the hex map, but they have smaller hexes and shorter turns, in which units get to move perhaps four hexes under good conditions and can see adjacent enemies (and usually even farther than that). In that case units can have a flanking effect and can be assigned to support an attack by another stack (with artillery fire, fr'instance). Under such rules units might receive opportunity fire while they try to cross an enemy units zone of control, but again, in Erfworld hexes are too far apart for that.

In no case do I recall a strategic game in which two separate stacks from separate hexes could attack at the same time unless they were first combined into one stack. The technique does occur in tactical games, but is difficult, can fail, and seems to fall outside the realm of "simple" which Parson described. Thus, this "pincer" formation seems to be little more than an aesthetic metaphor.

A good example of a tactical hex game would be D&D. Total War has both tactical and strategic combat. So why does Erfworld have no recognizable rules for tactical combat? It may be because there is no need for abstracted tactical rules when your units are subject to realistic physical laws. What we have seen so far makes it difficult to reconcile the idea that the actions of the units during combat are the result of simple dice rolls; they appear to be independent actors reacting to complex environments.

[darkgolem]

Vreejack, you could have simple flanking moves.

If the hex in front of a hex is, lets say, hex 1, and moving clockwise around it, the surrounding hexes are 2,3,4,5,6, there could be a rule where if you attack from hexes 3-5, you gain a bonus of some sort, since your attacking the rear of a formation. You would need something on a unit indicating which side is the front so you would know which side is the front, such as the stars in Ansom's hex on page 60.

However, it would require a better idea of movement rules, since otherwise flanking is too easy if you have lots of moves.

That would be a simple flanking rule.

However, I agree in that is unlikely.

[Caledonian]

Yes, it does. We know that Erfworld is a strategic war game with long moves and what Parson called "simple" rules.

Parson's whole life revolves around war- and roleplaying- games. What he considers simple, others are likely to view as complex.

[Vreejack]

Vreejack, you could have simple flanking moves.

If the hex in front of a hex is, lets say, hex 1, and moving clockwise around it, the surrounding hexes are 2,3,4,5,6, there could be a rule where if you attack from hexes 3-5, you gain a bonus of some sort, since your attacking the rear of a formation. You would need something on a unit indicating which side is the front so you would know which side is the front, such as the stars in Ansom's hex on page 60.

However, it would require a better idea of movement rules, since otherwise flanking is too easy if you have lots of moves.

That would be a simple flanking rule.

However, I agree in that is unlikely.

This is where it gets confusing. A "flanking" operation was described on the first page, but flanking is essentially a tactical development. You can only be flanked by units you are in combat with, which is why it is never done in a strategic turn-based game where players can set up any lines they want on their own turn---they would surround the enemy every time. Flanking can occur only in a tactical environment, which is what you have once the units enter the enemy hex and attack.

Strategic turn-based games rarely have any rules for flanking because everything that goes on inside the hex is entirely abstract. In some games the attacker picks an attacking unit, the defender a defending unit, and a roll is made and damage applied. Sometimes the attacker has a special ability that enables it to pick the defender it wants to fight, as a submarine might, but that is often as complex as it gets because modeling the details of the fight is needlessly complex. Erfworld is different because technically, you do not really need an abstract layer for anything that goes on inside the hex. The is no awkward modeling needed because units automatically obey realistic physical laws. Once units are engaged in combat within the hex then concepts like "flanking" make complete sense, but there we run into the mathamancy problem. The existence of mathamancy and luckamancy seems to imply that all combat results are preordained by external die rolls, but if this is true then units like Jillian and Ansom are simply mindless but cunningly-animated automatons with no free will of their own.

Of course, you could make a very similar argument about our own free will and how much of it is real or simply a very cunning simulation, but for the people of Erfworld the problem is right at the surface. How Parson is subject to it will be the most interesting thing to see.

[SteveMB]

Erfworld is different because technically, you do not really need an abstract layer for anything that goes on inside the hex. The is no awkward modeling needed because units automatically obey realistic physical laws. Once units are engaged in combat within the hex then concepts like "flanking" make complete sense, but there we run into the mathamancy problem. The existence of mathamancy and luckamancy seems to imply that all combat results are preordained by external die rolls, but if this is true then units like Jillian and Ansom are simply mindless but cunningly-animated automatons with no free will of their own.

Of course, you could make a very similar argument about our own free will and how much of it is real or simply a very cunning simulation, but for the people of Erfworld the problem is right at the surface. How Parson is subject to it will be the most interesting thing to see.

This is basically the difference between game mechanics and characterization as it shows up in any game world that includes a significant RPG element. It shows up in different forms in presentations where the fourth wall is kept intact (e.g. Erfworld) and presentations where the fourth wall barely exists (e.g. OotS), but it's basically the same issue (and, as you note, not all that dissimilar to the problem of free will in the real world -- it's just that the characters in the game world are responding to a different set of underlying "laws of physics").

[sihnfahl]

How fast can leaders move? The uncroaked warlords Parson uses seem to have huge movement - far more even than dragons, but suddenly Ansom and Vinnie are stuck in a trap and have no movement left even though they can both fly. This makes sense as a story device, but not as a rule.

Mounted rules. The warlords themselves may not have much move on their own, but Jillian rides gwyphons, Stanley's uncroaked warlords ride dwagons...
Warlords can take on the move of the unit they're 'mounted' on.

How easy is it to kill warlords? Stanley has uncroaked at least five warlords which implies they all died and subsequently their bodies were retrieved. That suggests that the warlords died while the hex they were in remained controlled by Stanley. If killing warlords is that easy why couldn't Stanley have selectively attacked Ansom with a big dwagon stack ages ago?

Croaking Stanley's warlords was probably easier than croaking Ansom. Jillian is a level 9 warlord; since she answers to Ansom, I would presume he's even higher than that.
I'm getting the feeling that most of Stanley's warlords were probably on the same level as Webinar.

Can you move attack, move attack in one turn? This has happened several times but such rules make the idea of a fort structure of six hexes void. A fort structure is used to stop the attacker when the rules say one move and one attack. Similarly the concept of a pincer attack is invalid when combat takes place within one hex. It is a concept that comes from games where the hexes are tactical sizes and a single unit fills one hex and attacks into adjacent hexes.

Yes, it's obvious they can do multiple moves and attacks in one turn. Parson's tactic was to hit and retreat with each dwagon stack until they got too low on health and/or move.
And, no, the fort structure is not used, in this case, to stop an attacker who can only hit and move once. It's just as effective against someone who can hit and retreat provided you want to make sure you hide something in the middle you don't want someone to see. Ansom can only see hexes he can move units into. The fort structure prevented that movement.

The rules about what is know to Ansom and how he can issue commands would have to be unlike any turn based game I've ever seen. Ansom apparently doesn't know the results of battles automatically and he cannot issue commands automatically -- things which happen in every actual turn based hex game. I don't even know of real-time computer games that give you a fog of war so complete it covers the results of combat you initiated or the location of pieces you are moving.

That's because Ansom doesn't have any mathamancers. Remember Parson's new toy? It's specifically in the rules of Erfworld that warlords cannot see the outcome of a battle unless they use Mathamancy. Same way that Ansom suffers in intel compared to Stanley; he has no lookamancers.

Apart from the rules, some "realistic" considerations are put aside in the interests of the storyline. For example it is clear that Ansom's lack of Lookamancers is a nearly crippling defect and there seems to be no reason he cannot just hire a Lookamancer, especially as his alliance consists of many different groups -- surely one of them could hire a Lookamancer?

Perhaps, but that was a leadership decision. How many times have leaders gone into a fight and come out saying 'I wish we had X here, this would have helped...'

Some have pointed to the rules about a maximum of just eight creatures on a squad and others have noted the illustrations where it seems thousands of creatures are present. It's a contradiction and that's fine because this is a story. Only the narrative has to be consistent.

No, they point to the 'rules' about a maximum of 8 creatures in a squad because they're not paying attention. The stack bonus max is 8. But there's no limit to the number of units that can be in a hex.

So predictions? Ansom won't run away from the hex. All logic says he could but he won't. I suspect Ansom won't even attack another hex of B dwagons. That would be anticlimactic. He might try to do something with Jillian but that will likely fail because of Wanda's control. So Ansom sits there like a hero and gets hit. But the Arkenpliers effect on the uncroaked save him. He has to lose something significant though so I'm afraid it looks bad for Vinnie. Nothing else in that hex is going to save Parson from Stanely's unjustified wrath when he loses a bunch of dwagons except Ansom losing his only remaining scouting ability (the importance of Vinnie and his bats has been stressed repeatedly in the narrative).

In actuality, he's safer with his current stack than running. He doesn't have enough move to get far. There's presumably not enough units in the stack closeby that could protect him from the attack of 40+ dwagons.
He won't attack a nearby stack because that would injure his units further for questionable gain. Take the chance of croaking 4 dwagons, putting his hits down yet further, and make himself even more vulnerable to the remaining dwagons?
Ansom's outnumbered and outgunned here. It's Little Big Horn. Ansom = Custer. He moved himself into a position where he could get surrounded by a superior force and cannot call on enough reinforcements to save himself.

[Divine Hammer]

Parson's whole life revolves around war- and roleplaying- games. What he considers simple, others are likely to view as complex.

Worse yet, the game rules are simply real life for Erfworlders. It's harder to think about something as a game when you're actually living in it.

[slayerx]

How fast can leaders move? The uncroaked warlords Parson uses seem to have huge movement - far more even than dragons, but suddenly Ansom and Vinnie are stuck in a trap and have no movement left even though they can both fly. This makes sense as a story device, but not as a rule.

So predictions? Ansom won't run away from the hex. All logic says he could but he won't.

the uncroaked warlords are not using their own movement, they are using the dwagons movement; Dwagon's of which have very high movment... so long as they are on the dwagons they don't use any of their own movement... one exploitable mechanic that Parson is taking advatage of is that there is no rule against Warlords switching mounts... Hence why the uncroaked warlords have so much movement...

Vinnie and Ansom themsleves may have some movement left after this run, but they may not have enough to get them back to th coulmn, which would mean they would get attacked horribly next turn... One thing that also has been said is that 1 hex=1 move... crossing over a single hex may take multiple movment points, which make's four hexs an even larger run...

Can you move attack, move attack in one turn? This has happened several times but such rules make the idea of a fort structure of six hexes void. A fort structure is used to stop the attacker when the rules say one move and one attack. Similarly the concept of a pincer attack is invalid when combat takes place within one hex. It is a concept that comes from games where the hexes are tactical sizes and a single unit fills one hex and attacks into adjacent hexes.

The fort structure still works, just not as well...
The fort makes it so that the enemy must first fight through expenable units before they can get to the prize... fighting the units however will cause losses to the enemy thus making it harder for them to win the fight inside the fort...

The Pincer attack can still work... so far we have seen no rule saying that only one stack can attack at a time... Parson may very well be able to attack Ansom from more than one side at the same time, closing on him WITHIN the hex... Ansom will find himself being attacked from multiple sides with escape routs hard to get to

The rules about what is know to Ansom and how he can issue commands would have to be unlike any turn based game I've ever seen. Ansom apparently doesn't know the results of battles automatically and he cannot issue commands automatically -- things which happen in every actual turn based hex game. I don't even know of real-time computer games that give you a fog of war so complete it covers the results of combat you initiated or the location of pieces you are moving.

Erfworld blends together real world elements with gaming elements... the gaming elements are seen in the rules, but the realistic elements are seen in the execution... Ansom needs to recieve a field report in order to see the outcome and needs to send out orders, just as in real life; it's an element that could be programed into an RTS game easily if they wanted to... one thing you forget to take into account is that RTS games are usually played from above; the player isn't part of the game, he has the outside view... but unlike a player, Ansom IS part of the game and thus he is bound to the game and see's things like a unit, not a player

Apart from the rules, some "realistic" considerations are put aside in the interests of the storyline. For example it is clear that Ansom's lack of Lookamancers is a nearly crippling defect and there seems to be no reason he cannot just hire a Lookamancer, especially as his alliance consists of many different groups -- surely one of them could hire a Lookamancer?

Who says they could? So far from what we've seen, Mancer's are a rather rare breed outside of the magical kingdom... we have only seen a very small handful of Mancers... Mancers may be rare and hard to get as part of an army... Also, the magical kingdom may have lots of Mancers, but the kingdom is more than liekly neutral in this fight, and the kingdom may be only willing to sell spells and resources, not units... Ansom doesn't have any Lookamancers, and it sounds like it could very well be the case that he and his allies just plain have no access to them... Even Stanely might not normally have acess to them, he may have captured the one that he uses...

Again there have been some disputes over the exact numbers of troops on both sides. Some have pointed to the rules about a maximum of just eight creatures on a squad and others have noted the illustrations where it seems thousands of creatures are present. It's a contradiction and that's fine because this is a story. Only the narrative has to be consistent.

There is no such Maximum...
what was said is that the max BONUS a stack could have is 8... This leads to the armies breaking up into groups of 8 in order to make full use of Bonus... however, there is so far no actual limit on how many units can be in a stack or how many stacks you can fit in a single hex... for all we know, a stack could easily have a hundred units and you could fit 50 stacks in a single hex... we don't know, because it has not been mentioned

On a rules basis I agree that dwagons are just so powerful against someone with no Lookamancers that there's no way Stanely could have lost ten cities.

Not really... Stanely is incompetent and normally hires incompetent warlords... they have no sense for stradegy and thus is how they loose... Ansom and Vinnie do have a strong sense of stradegy, and good brains can over power brawn... Furtharmore, Stanely has been shown not to like loosing dwagons... is very easy to assume that Stanely has held back greatly on using his dwagons which lead to many loses... Dwagons are powerful, but they are not ominpetent

[Caledonian]

Ooh! Ooh! Field promotions!

The two most powerful Alliance warlords - Ansom and Vinny - are about to either be killed or captured. If that's the case, command would pass to the next-highest-ranking individual.

Which is... Jillian.

There are of course no important implications of the Alliance forces being commanded by an individual Wanda's brainwashed repeatedly. None at all.

[slayerx]

I doubt Jillian is next in line for leardership... She is a Mercanry, who has no forces of her won and who is constantly getting captured and their a those who don't trust her (even Ansom was questionable about trusting her)... The next in line would most likely be one of the other coalition leaders

[Welf]

The next in line would most likely be one of the other coalition leaders

I think the leader of the coalition forces is the current leader of the jetstone forces; maybe webinar or some unknown third warlord second to Ansom would be the new leader.

By the way, there are nothing like automatic promotions. After Manpower "bit it" Stanley had to promote a new warlord manually. If this would happen automaticaly, Stanley wouldn't be surprised about the fact that there's nobody left of his warlords.

[Chadwick]

In tic tac toe, the only way to win is to set up to simultanous win conditions. 2 options that are equilly viable.

Tic tac toe is a game were if you have two people who know how to play the game will always end in a draw. As long as you take a corner first you should never lose.

[Chewy]

Vreejack, you could have simple flanking moves.

If the hex in front of a hex is, lets say, hex 1, and moving clockwise around it, the surrounding hexes are 2,3,4,5,6, there could be a rule where if you attack from hexes 3-5, you gain a bonus of some sort, since your attacking the rear of a formation. You would need something on a unit indicating which side is the front so you would know which side is the front, such as the stars in Ansom's hex on page 60.

However, it would require a better idea of movement rules, since otherwise flanking is too easy if you have lots of moves.

That would be a simple flanking rule.

However, I agree in that is unlikely.

Its impossilbe to flank in any TBS game where you enter a tactical map. IF you enter a tactical map the units will always be facing you hence making it pointless. Only in games where you do damage directly on the overworld map does flanking damage ever apply.

[Smushel's Dart]

I've been debating the question put forth here (where are Ansom's Lookamancers) and this is the best I can come up with.

Ansom, being "good" is unlikely to use the tactics used by Stanley, namely subsuming the will of multiple casters into one caster. On their own, I am guessing Lookamancers do not have the kind of range/duration that the three linked casters do now. Thus, even if he has them, they would be of more limited usefulness.

Next, I wonder if the idea of using that kind of mancy, both Naughtmancy and Lookamancy, would be anathema to a "good" aligned warlord. Having units you know can do something as unusual as eating someone's will might be both personally distasteful and potentially demoralizing. I've been playing a lot of HoMM5 recently and I'm aware of putting, say, powerful Drow Dungeon casters with my elven towns because they ruin the morale. Would that come into play here too?

[jja]

Speaking dramatically, if not strategically...

It was mentioned before that Ansom would be unlikely to abandon his troops. But suppose that Ansom directly ordered Vinny to escape, with authority to assume acting leadership of the Alliance forces (pending confirmation by the King).

Parson could then achieve the goal of capturing Ansom and perhaps the Arkenpliers, but the Alliance would remain dangerous, as Vinny is smart enough to challenge Parson, is a very likable character, and would have a great drive to gain revenge for the loss of Ansom. It would also allow for additional tension if Vinny had to work with, and sometimes against, Alliance politics. (Could he keep everyone working together as Ansom had? Would he be suspected of betraying Ansom?)

[Maelore]

Out of curiosity if Stanley or Parson really want Ansom croaked, couldn't Parson just put all 50+ of his dwagons in one giant stack and have his uncroaked warlords direct all of them to "Eat the chap with the pliers first!" Then assuming any of the Warlords survive the counterattack withdraw with your surviving dwagons?

It just seems that if Parson could pull this off he could snipe the three known warlords out of the stack, so long as at least one of his warlords is left. Just given what we have seen I severely doubt anything in Ansom's army could survive having all those dwagons focus fire on it.

Or am I completely off base?

[SteveMB]

Out of curiosity if Stanley or Parson really want Ansom croaked, couldn't Parson just put all 50+ of his dwagons in one giant stack and have his uncroaked warlords direct all of them to "Eat the chap with the pliers first!" Then assuming any of the Warlords survive the counterattack withdraw with your surviving dwagons?

It just seems that if Parson could pull this off he could snipe the three known warlords out of the stack, so long as at least one of his warlords is left. Just given what we have seen I severely doubt anything in Ansom's army could survive having all those dwagons focus fire on it.

Or am I completely off base?

I think you've got the basic idea. Ansom expected that ending turn in the middle of the remaining Donut of Doom dwagons, while not exactly being an ideal situation, would be survivable if he succeeded in taking out the wounded dwagons and the uncroaked warlords. Without warlords, they would have to fight every enemy unit they met. The previous example of that situation (Jillian using the orlies to screen off the other four dwagons while she took out the blue) implies that Ansom et al could control which units the incoming dwagons would fight (presumably the gumps, which seem to be the toughest).

Having discovered that it's a Donut of Deception and that the wounded dwagons (and, most importantly, the warlords) are out there somewhere (but presumably close enough to descend on him when Stanley's turn begins) and they heal up, it's no wonder Ansom looks rather unhappy....

[spite48]

...it's no wonder Ansom looks rather unhappy....

Aye. Imagine his chagrin if he pulls in defensive support only to have Parson ignore him to go after the siege again.

[Vreejack]

The fort structure still works, just not as well...
The fort makes it so that the enemy must first fight through expenable units before they can get to the prize... fighting the units however will cause losses to the enemy thus making it harder for them to win the fight inside the fort...

I have never seen this done in a strategic game. Multiple attacks in one turn may be allowed but if you attack a hex and lose you must return to the hex you attacked from. I would assume that Erfworld uses a similar rule, thus all dwagons must be killed in one of the fort hexes before Ansom & co. can advance to the center.

This will be a minor annoyance for Parson, since if Ansom places the siege on the far side of the column then Parson must go all the way around, and it looks like a long column. In fact, Ansom may be forced to create a moving "fort" structure to protect his siege, which is what I would have had set up all along given the dwagon's obvious abilities.

The Pincer attack can still work... so far we have seen no rule saying that only one stack can attack at a time... Parson may very well be able to attack Ansom from more than one side at the same time, closing on him WITHIN the hex... Ansom will find himself being attacked from multiple sides with escape routs hard to get to

Turn-based strategy games in which more than one stack can attack at a time (assuming it makes any difference in the first place) are unplayably unbalanced as anyone on his turn can easily surround enemy formations and--using any supposed "flanking" bonus--destroy them. Whoever goes first wins, or it degenerates into a game of go, in which every player is trying to create large "blob" formations that cannot be advantageously surrounded, hollowing them out and puffing up like a puffer fish to make himself a larger target while hoping that the enemy cannot punch a hole through his line and eat him out from the inside. It's an interesting game but it is not Erfworld.

Who says they could? So far from what we've seen, Mancer's are a rather rare breed outside of the magical kingdom... we have only seen a very small handful of Mancers... Mancers may be rare and hard to get as part of an army... Also, the magical kingdom may have lots of Mancers, but the kingdom is more than liekly neutral in this fight, and the kingdom may be only willing to sell spells and resources, not units... Ansom doesn't have any Lookamancers, and it sounds like it could very well be the case that he and his allies just plain have no access to them... Even Stanely might not normally have acess to them, he may have captured the one that he uses...

Stanley used to have a lot more cities, and yet, I would assume that Ansom has those cities now. Or--come to think of it--the cities from which those mancers hail have been destroyed, not captured. When Wanda picked up Manpower she flew over some ruins. Some tribes have been lost, after all, whatever that means.

[spotmarkedx]

This will be a minor annoyance for Parson, since if Ansom places the siege on the far side of the column then Parson must go all the way around, and it looks like a long column. In fact, Ansom may be forced to create a moving "fort" structure to protect his siege, which is what I would have had set up all along given the dwagon's obvious abilities.

Huh? I don't see why this is a problem at all. Seeing as the only reason this plan is working is the fact that Ansom's flyers are out covering Jillian, and only archers and flyers can hinder a flying unit flying over them in any way (flyers, I assume, would defend. Archers get their hitses), Ansom making a "fort" would do nothing, unless the fort was comprised of these unit types, and even a fort of archers would not force a battle, just some opportunity fire. We don't know what percentage of his units are archers, but we can fairly well assume that if he tries to use archers in a long line to "make Parson go around", Parson would probably kill one hex of archers and have the rest of the dragons fly through unhindered.