On Ansom's Reasons, and Good Ideas that Go Wrong.

[tomaO2]

This is a good thread.

I was totally flabbergasted by the last page as it suggests that Ansom may be in danger now of being killed. I was of the same mind as Flaky in that I figured that as soon as the "A" dwagons and warlords were killed that Ansom and Vinnie would run away and let the forrest units be sacrificed.

This was always my working assumption of what Ansom's plan was after he killed the dwagons. This appears to not be the case though. I honestly could not wrap my head around what Ansom was thinking if this is the case so it's nice to have alternative explinations.

One problem I have with Talanic's mostly great theory is why send small groups against the "weak" dwagons at the beginning if the attacks are all number based? If attacking in a group that is a magnatude larger then the other is the way to go why bother with the smaller attack? How might "unit freshness" play a role? Why not attack with all the elves lead by a command unit on the dwagons instead of sending them in piecemeal? Even if Ansom wanted to preserve Gump "freshness", he still didn't have to send in small stacks of unlead elf units, right?

I really hope we get more insight into Ansom's head as to what his original plan was if this hadn't been a trap bacause despite all the speculation, there are just too many unknowable factors here and it irritates me since this failed attack is such an important plot point.

[PyritePyro]

not if losing the queen makes you forfeit.

But he's only risking a bishop, or a knight, not the king. The King is safe and sound back in the Jetstone capitol.

[zorac]

Not if you're using the One Ring model. I think that's a fascinating perspective. It casts a different light on Stanley's rant on page 32, makes it more literal.

Whoa, wicked thought. I always assumed that Stanley had some hidden "Fate" score that made him able to attune to the artifacts.

What if it's the opposite? Maybe the artifacts can't control people easily, so they need the stupidest, weakest-willed, most arrogant but malleable person they can find? The Arkenhammer attuned to him because he never questions his motives, acts on impulse and is utterly trivial to control. Since getting the Arkenhammer all he's done has been to try to get the other Arkentools.

Stanley, as the dumbest person in Erfworld, is the prime victim for whatever the agenda the Arkentools have. Maybe the whole Tool thing really is that literal! Stanley is a tool of the Tools, and is unwittingly completely correct in his claims.

[zorac]

This, by the way, creates a character development arc for Stanley. He may eventually realize that he's a victim of the Tools and has been all along. That could be a very tragic ending for him, where he either submits to them completely or is destroyed when he tries to resist. (Very remotely, it might be a path to redemption as a person.)

[DavidByron]

One problem I have with Talanic's mostly great theory is why send small groups against the "weak" dwagons at the beginning if the attacks are all number based? If attacking in a group that is a magnatude larger then the other is the way to go why bother with the smaller attack?

Two answers.

Firstly the tactic was marginal. Ansom changes his mind and says he should have attacked all out to begin with. In fact it was not a mistake he was just a bit unlucky.

Second and main reason is to note that quality really counts in combat. So a vast number of weaker units don't have much use except as cannon fodder to try to wear down a bigger force before the main combat where your best stuff (gumps, warlords) attacks the enemy's best. Ansom was sending cheap troops to try to get a hit or two on the 3 dwagons.

It's marginal. As it turned out he did no damage to them at all. Unlucky. And as it turned out his big attack wiped out all 3 dwagons before they could return fire (so it wouldn't have mattered if they had been wounded). Lucky. But it might easily have not gone so well. it might have been that his big attack killed only 1 dwagon and left two severely wounded with just a couple of HP left, allowing both of them to attack a gump (with their full attack of course because damage is all or nothing) and reducing his A stack's attack against the central hex. Just a couple of weak hits from leaderless archers might have made all the difference between losing a gump and not. but you don't know that. it's luck. he was playing the odds.

Ansom is really worried about keeping his big stack at its peak. That's why he didn't just attack the nearest of the six B dwagon hexes to begin with. There's no doubt he could kill 5 B dwagons easily. The doubt was whether he could kill 5 B dwagons without ANY losses of his gumps. Losing infantry isn't a concern because they are replaceable and only 8 at a time can fight. If you have 80 infantry then the other 72 are sitting around. So it's worth losing 40 infantry to maybe save a single gump.

Of course the ethics of that tactic are debatable......

[Tredrick]

There are too many rules we do not know for us to fully understand what is happening.

For example, Ansom and VInny may have been far from the dwagon fort and used a lot of move to join their woodsy elves and other forest units. Or warlords may have a high move, but, once they join a stack, are limited to the move of the stack. In this case Ansom may have 30 move on his flying log, but is limited to the 6 that his gumps have once he joins them.

As for how he intended to survive a possible counter attack, he might have planned to bring in the air power he has to defend the center stack.

[TheTurnipKing]

But he's only risking a bishop, or a knight, not the king. The King is safe and sound back in the Jetstone capitol.

The literal king, certainly. But in this case it's a metaphor for Ansom's own *boop*.

[Chewy]

Two answers.

If you have 80 infantry then the other 72 are sitting around. So it's worth losing 40 infantry to maybe save a single gump.

Of course the ethics of that tactic are debatable......

No, more then 8 can fight at a time only 8 was sent in at once because the bonus ENDS at 8 units and the only reason he sent in a few stacks at first was to gauge and weaken the dragon stack as you said. Which I find was probally pointless and he should have sent them all in at first. It serves no tactical value to ever split up forces in a TBS game except to scout or grab resources. Numbers means almost everything in a TBS. Quality never matters unless its special like a AOE mage or something of that sort.

[Damionte]

Just because the bonus ends at 8, does not mean no more than 8 can fight at a time. there is simply a cap on the bonus you can get from numbers.

[tainsouvra]

One problem I have with Talanic's mostly great theory is why send small groups against the "weak" dwagons at the beginning if the attacks are all number based? If attacking in a group that is a magnatude larger then the other is the way to go why bother with the smaller attack? How might "unit freshness" play a role? Why not attack with all the elves lead by a command unit on the dwagons instead of sending them in piecemeal? Even if Ansom wanted to preserve Gump "freshness", he still didn't have to send in small stacks of unlead elf units, right?

It's actually not as bad as you'd think.

If the tactic he had in mind to take out the majority of his wounded/uncroaked opponents involved a Gump run (hehe), keeping them out of the first battle would ensure they had full health to make the rush. It was, as we saw, an option to go all at once, but Ansom preferred to lose some of his non-key units rather than lose health on his key units, until it became clear that he would lose more of his overall force that way.

This isn't an issue in games like HoMM, where units regain health each engagement, but with health being regained once a day on Erfworld the small retaliation you get from an outmatched force can still add up and make future battles more difficult. I think Ansom just wanted to focus on making his coup as clean as possible, but when he saw he was losing too many units that way, he simply went with the big numbers.

[dither]

And the 'Queen' of this fight, right now, is not Ansom. It's the siege. Without it, Ansom might as well pack up and go home - he's not going to beat GK's defenses through tunnel fighting and airborne assaults.

My thought on the matter follows the second or third post that discusses "moving the enemy." I figure at this point the dwagons can fly circles around Ansom's forces, and moving Ansom out of the column to "deal" with the dwagons means that no one's really left to order the troops to do anything. Parson can fly out and hit the siege again and bring them home without ever attacking Ansom at all.

No more siege means the Ansom will have to go in through the tunnels or go home.

In this way, Ansom and Vinny live (as seems to be the popular choice) and Gobwin Knob is spared while the conflict remains. That means there's more time to get Parson up to speed for the "final" conflict that happens X chapters down the line.

[Caledonian]

Let's also keep in mind that the Alliance forces are trying to attack units in a forest. Even if they're forest-capable, that only makes it possible for them to strike the dragons - normal units can't. It's still likely that the dragons have a major defensive advantage.

I suspect that, had the ring of lesser dragons attacked once Ansom had destroyed the warlords, the forest elves and gumps would have had a serious defensive advantage.

[spotmarkedx]

Let's also keep in mind that the Alliance forces are trying to attack units in a forest. Even if they're forest-capable, that only makes it possible for them to strike the dragons - normal units can't. It's still likely that the dragons have a major defensive advantage.

I suspect that, had the ring of lesser dragons attacked once Ansom had destroyed the warlords, the forest elves and gumps would have had a serious defensive advantage.

At the bare minimum, they would have the warlord bonus, and the dragons would not. As I said earlier, I also think that the gumps (not being archery) may not be able to effect the flying dragon attacks on GK's turn unless the dragons attack them (which may have happened on uncontrolled warlord-less auto-attack).

After that we get to almost pure speculation on things like: how targeting works with warlords on both sides, potential terrain benefits when defending forests, the possibility of flanking/surrounding bonuses, exactly how tough a dragon is compared to a gump or a warlord, etc. etc.

Still... speculation is fun, isnt it?

[lavidor10]

Is Tarfu the leader of the Woodsy Elves? He's definitely some kind of Warlord. Even if Ansom and Vinny could get away with their high flying Move, leaving all the Gumps and Elves (and especially Tarfu) to be Dwagoned would seriously shake things with the other alliances, the elven ones at least.

I really don't know what Ansom was thinking.

[ChowGuy]

Is Tarfu the leader of the Woodsy Elves? He's definitely some kind of Warlord. Even if Ansom and Vinny could get away with their high flying Move, leaving all the Gumps and Elves (and especially Tarfu) to be Dwagoned would seriously shake things with the other alliances, the elven ones at least.

Some of the Elves, perhaps. Probably not the Eager Elves, and the Shady Elves might secretly be overjoyed. The Luckless Elves and the Schlemiel Elves will be just be all "Saw that coming!" while the Lofty Elves and the Altruistic Elves will understand that it was for "the good of the many." As for the Superfluous Elves...

But seriously, Tarfu volunteered to lead the assault himself, despite what he and Vinny apparently saw as a personal risk to himself. I expect that it's that spirit as much as anything else that holds the coalition together.

[tainsouvra]

I really don't know what Ansom was thinking.

That Stanley couldn't outsmart him, and thus all of this was irrelevant.

If Parson hadn't tricked him, Stanley would be down 20 dwagons and 3 warlords right now, and Ansom would have taken so few losses that the remaining dwagons would be outgunned by his current (forest) force alone.

[BRC]

Stanley appears to be so convinced that Stanly can't outsmart him that he has thrown caution to the winds, thinking "I'm smarter then stanely so there is no way this could be a trap because I don't think it is!"

[ChowGuy]

Stanley[sic] appears to be so convinced that Stanly can't outsmart him that he has thrown caution to the winds, thinking "I'm smarter then stanely so there is no way this could be a trap because I don't think it is!"

Based on his intelligence data plus his prior experience with Stanley and probably every other "traditionalist" in Erfworld tactics, his assessment seemed perfectly reasonable. Where he (and Vinny) erred was in not scouting further beyond the Fort of Foolery. Had he done so, the trap would have failed, perhaps disastrously if it indeed leaves the Dwagons exposed to air attack. His failure to do so was something Parson's plan depended upon. If anyone here is being over-confident of his superiority, it's Parson.

But we've seen this before: "Supposed to be dumber then that." One of these turns, that attitude is going to end up costing him.

[BRC]

Based on his intelligence data plus his prior experience with Stanley and probably every other "traditionalist" in Erfworld tactics, his assessment seemed perfectly reasonable. Where he (and Vinny) erred was in not scouting further beyond the Fort of Foolery. Had he done so, the trap would have failed, perhaps disastrously if it indeed leaves the Dwagons exposed to air attack. His failure to do so was something Parson's plan depended upon. If anyone here is being over-confident of his superiority, it's Parson.

Yeah, but even so, I'm getting the impression that Ansom ismore like stanleys previous warlords then anything.

[Scientivore]

If anyone here is being over-confident of his superiority, it's Parson.

But we've seen this before: "Supposed to be dumber then that." One of these turns, that attitude is going to end up costing him.

I don't like plans that depend on the opponent making false assumptions. To be fair to Parson, he had specific intelligence about Ansom's beliefs. Although Vinny correctly anticipated the first trap, his reasoning was something along the lines of "even Stanley the Fool might eventually notice that you always do the exact same thing" (heavily paraphrased). Also, Parson learned from that and went on to correct Stanley when the Tool called Ansom stupid in the most recent page.

[Mystyco]

ahhh, this is a good one :P

ansom has done a good move afterall, because none of the presents stanley-wanda-parson know actually what's going in his head.

quite enough, they could use some "magic help" to make them harder to hit, or maybe invisibles, or again make he dwagons weaker...who knows? even a teleport spell would do ATM

the fact that 3 relatively weak dwagons has been croaked in a not-so-hard way, i think getting a full stack of dwagons inside would make huge casualties, both side. also, parson can't send warlords in, as the arkenpliers would destroy them and would take the warlord bonus from the dwagon stack, making it weaker.

we'll see