Erfworld 128 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 116

[Arkenputtyknife]

Not to belabor the point, but is Erfworld a celestial body? Is it even spherical?
Remember that its a gameworld, where East tends to be an arbitrary direction marked on a map. I think it would be entirely consistent for erf to be a 2d world... (after all, I don't think hexes fit neatly in non-euclidian geometry)...

And yes, your point is well taken that I could be going about this backwards, but I'm just trying to say that we shouldn't make assumptions that the world works like ours. (and I want to see the dramatic rescue scene)

In the absence of multiple suns, and if the sun follows a more-or-less consistent path through the sky from day to day, it really doesn't matter whether Erf is a celestial body, a map on a piece of paper, a flat world with nice square edges with a sun that's painted on a chariot that flies through the sky on invisible rails, or a figment of Parson's imagination. If east is by definition the direction from which the sun rises—and I know of no better definition—then the sun rises in the east, no matter how the world works. North, South, West are defined relative to that.

For the sun to rise anywhere other than in the East, you need some other reference by which to define these directions. One way to do this is to create the world map first, mark arbitrary compass directions on it, and then specify the direction of the sun's apparent movement. But explorers newly arrived in that world would take one look at a sunrise and declare "That's east", and they would be objectively correct, no matter what the map says.

[Anteros]

So all of a sudden Wanda is suddenly vastly more powerful than any other caster or unit we've seen, and it's going to be used as a Deus ex Machina? Ok then.

"Hey, I've given you no sign I can do this, and it would have been REALLY useful before during all the battles we lost, but now I can suddenly create thousands upon thousands of units every turn!"

Bad writing.

[Bilgore]

I like it how the unkroaked units changed their outfit to a Hamstard-Shirt.
Perhaps a nice addition made by Wanda?

Yes, but do the uncroaked get pizza stains as well? (SOMEONE has to ask the important questions around here... )

[EvilDoom]

Parson said the moment he arrived at Gobwin Knob that that the battle would be based on asymmetric warfare. Having a few good casters (who offer a plethora of out-of-the-conventional-box options) to use against a large conventional army is a perfect situation to exploit asymmetric tactics.

The other asymmetric tactic was also announced and is being used, play the player not the position. Putting the undead Jetstone on the wall, Parson is doing his damnedest to play Ansom: egg Ansom on to attack while making it clear to rational decision is to wait for the undead army to decay. If Ansom falls for it and push's to attack, Parson may have successfully undermined Ansom's judgment and potentially his alliance as his partners lose faith in his emotionally laden tactical leadership.

[SteveMB]

now I can suddenly create thousands upon thousands of units every turn!

Well, every turn that there happen to be thousands upon thousands of croaked units lying around in a location controlled by Stanley's forces. Given the progress of the war so far, the last time that happened would be... never.

[TheMutant]

So all of a sudden Wanda is suddenly vastly more powerful than any other caster or unit we've seen, and it's going to be used as a Deus ex Machina? Ok then.

"Hey, I've given you no sign I can do this, and it would have been REALLY useful before during all the battles we lost, but now I can suddenly create thousands upon thousands of units every turn!"

Bad writing.

Uh, no. I doubt that, in the other battles of Stanley vs the Coalition, there were thousands upon thousands of croaked units in the same hex. It's only because Gobwin Knob counts as a single hex that this trick worked. In addition, it'd be a terrible risk to have had Wanda out in the field uncroaking units from every field skirmish (only occasionally, such as to retrieve one of their few warlords)- most of them don't have the massive casualties like this fight did, and unless the uncroaked get Wanda's bonus (putting her in the front lines and subject to being targeted by enemy warlords, as Webinar tried to do to Sizemore), I believe they're a touch subpar- or at best, normal infantry with a time limit. Which involves risking a valuable caster in the field for little gain, which Stanley, in traditional Erf methods, did not.

EDIT: Argh, ninja'd by the Magnificent Boop!

[headhoncho]

So all of a sudden Wanda is suddenly vastly more powerful than any other caster or unit we've seen, and it's going to be used as a Deus ex Machina? Ok then.
"Hey, I've given you no sign I can do this, and it would have been REALLY useful before during all the battles we lost, but now I can suddenly create thousands upon thousands of units every turn!"
Bad writing.

I don't have a problem with this at all. The limitations make sense, and even though "a few turns" feels like an eternity given that all of the action here in the entire strip has taken place over only a few turns, in a broader game mechanic sense, it's a big limitation.

The big thing for me, my hobby horse right now, is the total crushing of the dwagons. Six surviving out of what, 30+ or so? I'll feel fine if Transylvito is similarly crushed (a few warlords and a few dozen bats left), but if they largely skate after what was supposed to be a tough battle, even with their Caesar-from-out-of-nowhere gambit?

For me, that would be underwhelming and disappointing in the extreme.

But I'm happy to wait and see what happens, and give these excellent storytellers the benefit of the doubt. Right now, I'm just speculating and soapboxing, like we all tend to do. :)

[charles]

So all of a sudden Wanda is suddenly vastly more powerful than any other caster or unit we've seen, and it's going to be used as a Deus ex Machina? Ok then.

"Hey, I've given you no sign I can do this, and it would have been REALLY useful before during all the battles we lost, but now I can suddenly create thousands upon thousands of units every turn!"

Bad writing.

Not bad writing. Bad Leadership that Gobwin Knob has suffered from for a very long time.

Stanley loves his pretty boys and ultimate characters. He waves them around, much like he does the arkenhammer. He'd never go for creating a mass of undead troops, who are as weak as kittens, would never seem like a good Idea to him.

Also, they are under the unique conditions of Gobwin Knob. In a normal field battle it'd be mostly one giant attack across multiple hexes. At gobwin knob it's all considered one area. They die in the tunnels, Wanda raises them and they get free move to the walls.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Oh snap. Uncroaked Webinar is awesome looking. Great job guys.

[BRC]

Woah, I Just noticed that the Uncroaked troopsare having their armor magically changed to the Hamstard. That is both awsome AND Stylish.

[Anteros]

The big problem with Erf is that almost every major plot point is like a Deus Ex Machina. We have no idea of the rules or boundaries of the setting, so any solution proposed to any problem comes conveniently out of nowhere.

It's not necessarily bad at first, but as the story drags along it gets older and older. As we have progressed through Erf it's changed from "I wonder what strategy Parson will use to save himself now?" to "I wonder what new rule will be invented to save Parson now?" That's a problem to me.

We're not in the introduction any more, this comic has been out for what? Two or three years? And the setting is still so undefined that the author gets to create new rules to suit the story at any given time. I understand that this is the lure for Erf to many of you, but at some point it has to stop and there have to be actual hard and fast rules for a setting.

Bad. Writing.

[Etheric]

I also don't get why the powerful units turning the tide is bad. If you were leading an infantry company, and you found yourself in a losing battle against an enemy infantry battalion, would you begrudge the friendly tank that turned up and saved the day, just because it is more powerful than you are?

The point is it is like you have a tank battalion against several infantry battalions and go on about "oh we are in trouble, we are horrifically outnumbered", when infact you would expect to win easily. I was hoping for some clever strategy. Oh our caster is actually incredibly powerful an can turn the tide of battle on their own is hardly clever strategy.

Oh and I disagree with the "casters always have to be at home" justification too. If the casters are as hugely powerful as they seem here then to have ANY hope of defeating an enemy you would have to take the risk and take them with you.

An instant army for a few turns every time you win a major battle is an enormous advantage, unless there are some strategies to negate uncroaked we have not seen yet.

We don't know the limits of Jack's abilities but the tactical advantages of mass illusions running around the battlefield are HUGE. It is an enormous force multipler.

I do like Erfworld, but the internal logic feels forced to me. In OOTS there is an underlying and fixed rule system so it feels like there is internal consistancy. I do think Rob and Jamie need to nail down a fairly comprehensive rule system for Erf, as the power level of things seems to move too much at the "speed of plot" which spoils my immersion in the story.

[Heavy]

As far as I can remember we haven't witnessed a "click" during sunset and -rise, which would indicate a lightswitch being thrown.

Furthermore we have heard characters refer to east and west, I have been affirmatively made to accept that "East" is the direction a body rotates/spins which indicates that Erfworld rotates/spins in relation to its sun which, but this is guesswork, it might even orbit ... doesn't really matter whether it is spherical ...

I'm sorry, can't go on about it, need to take my pills ...

[EvilDoom]

With the addition of so many undead troops after Parson made his calculation for Charlie, Charlie may no longer be able to take Gobwin Knob with the number of Archons he brought.

In this sense, Parson may have just played Charlie.

[Calmness]

We have no idea of the rules or boundaries of the setting, so any solution proposed to any problem comes conveniently out of nowhere.

That we don't know the rules doesn't mean they "come out of nowhere", nor that they are "Deus Ex Machina" either. By now we know quite a bit about the caster's general capabilities as well as the workings of stack interactions. The comic has been showing us the rules strip by strip. Besides, Wanda was said to be the most powerful of the casters, who are quite powerful themselves, so this isn't too surprising. More like Parson is abusing hex rules and Necromancy abilities, big deal.

If you want to be able to predict everything that happens, then yes this is annoying but it is not bad writing.

[Oslecamo]

Oh and I disagree with the "casters always have to be at home" justification too. If the casters are as hugely powerful as they seem here then to have ANY hope of defeating an enemy you would have to take the risk and take them with you.

The trick is, you don't need your casters to be in the battlefield for them to win battles for you.

-Dirtmancers get you sweet money with mines and build you mighty golems
-Thinkmancers allow fast comunication plus prisioner interrogation/control.
-Foolmancers allow your army to move in and out of your main base in secret so the oponent doesn't know how many units you exactly have defending, leting you make suprise strikes while looking you're heavily defended.
Or even where the hell are your cities.

Ect ect.

An instant army for a few turns every time you win a major battle is an enormous advantage, unless there are some strategies to negate uncroaked we have not seen yet.

Instant temporary army may be good, but geting the enemy leader's corpse, sending it to your base and taking your time to properly uncroack it so it's stronger and lasts more will be much more worthwhile in the long run.

We don't know the limits of Jack's abilities but the tactical advantages of mass illusions running around the battlefield are HUGE. It is an enormous force multipler.

Stanley still got pwned, foolmancer or not. Out of 30 dwagons, only 6 escaped, and Transyvilto didn't had any casters of their own.

Thing is, a mancer can indeed help you a lot on the battlefield, but if he's fighting, then he isn't using his powers for something equally valuable back in your main base, AND you still need to spend resources to protect them in the open.

Taking a mancer into battle is screaming to get ganked. And they are much more squishy than warlords.

This is, Jillian probably could have croacked Jack, just like she could have croacked Wanda, but her feelings stoped her.

[Anteros]

That we don't know the rules doesn't mean they "come out of nowhere", nor that they are "Deus Ex Machina" either. By now we know quite a bit about the caster's general capabilities as well as the workings of stack interactions. The comic has been showing us the rules strip by strip. Besides, Wanda was said to be the most powerful of the casters, who are quite powerful themselves, so this isn't too surprising. More like Parson is abusing hex rules and Necromancy abilities, big deal.

If you want to be able to predict everything that happens, then yes this is annoying but it is not bad writing.

Except they do come out of nowhere. You make a setting and have characters interact and react with it. You don't make characters and have a setting interact and react with them. And the problem here is not that a new rule was introduced exactly. It's that a new rule was introduced that arbitrarily turns the tide of the story, with no previous indication of such a rule.

This development was on par with Parson having Maggie cast a spell to destroy Ansom's mind. We have no indication she can do such a thing, and it completely changes the story. That makes it bad writing.

Up until this point we were working under the assumption the Parson had to defend Gobwin Knob, which was greatly weaker than the invading force. In this comic we find that the author essentially lied to us, and Gobwin Knob is far more powerful than indicated.

Maybe in the next comic Parson can have thousands of reinforcements show up from another city that Tool was allied with. We have no indication of such a thing, but it's no more outlandish than this.

[AngryAngel]

Oh and I disagree with the "casters always have to be at home" justification too. If the casters are as hugely powerful as they seem here then to have ANY hope of defeating an enemy you would have to take the risk and take them with you.

Well, casters do seem to be left at home, usually (see Jillian's remarks about wanting to take Jack with her). What you're missing is the difference between theory and practice. In the opening stages of WW2 (in the Pacific) the Japanese battle fleet spent most of its time tied up alongside, because it was both the instrument of decision, and too valuable to risk. It was only later in the war, when the tide had turned inexorbly against Japan, that the Japanese were willing to expend their battleships.

Kinda like what's happening now. Parson is deperate, and will take any advantage he can get.

[Wrecan]

The point is it is like you have a tank battalion against several infantry battalions and go on about "oh we are in trouble, we are horrifically outnumbered", when infact you would expect to win easily. I was hoping for some clever strategy. Oh our caster is actually incredibly powerful an can turn the tide of battle on their own is hardly clever strategy.

Except I don't think that's what we're seeing.

The tide turned because:
1) Parson worked with Rockwell to operate strategically. Rockwell on his own is a competent golem-maker, but that's it. I suspect Parson came up with the idea of flooding the tunnels with oil and setting them on fire, with strategically collapsing tunnels to divide the enemy and take them out one by one, and to create golems out of things like cement and iron, and not just crap and dirt.

2) Parson played on Ansom's pride, which led to the fateful decision to send Jetstone and the marbits in with a mid-level Webinar as commander rather than one of the high-level warlords on his advisory board. Had someone with a higher commander bonus been leading the troops, it would have been more than Webinar and Dora confronting Sizemore, and Sizemore would have been croaked, and the Coallition forces would be climbing out of the tunnels to confront whatever troops Lord Hamster had left to him.

3) Wanda's uncroaking of Jetstone is a transient benefit. If Ansom isn't goaded into a precipitous attack (which given his ego, he might be), he would simply hang back and wait for the zombie horde to decay on its own (or be sent on a suicide mission against the Coalition, which would have had several rounds to prepare defenses). But Ansom can't, for several reasons directly attributable to Parson.

First, the Coalition is beginning to fracture (thanks to Parson) and waiting means increased chance that the allies simply leave.

Second, if croakamancy is seen as a desecration of his loyal retainers, Ansom's code of honor might compel him to act, even if it is unwise.

Third, Ansom's losses might correspond to a loss in treasury -- and if Parson is suddenly cash rich (and Ansom doesn't know how much it cost Gobwin Knob to summon Parson), Ansom has to think it very likely that Parson can buy Charlie's support, especially if Gobwin Knob's treasury is allowed to grow for a few turns.

Fourth, Gobwin Knob hasn't become barbarian this turn, which means that Jillian and Vinny failed to kill Stanley. Also, Jillian and Vinny don't seem to have any way to communicate with Ansom to let him know what happened. This means Ansom may think Jillian and Vinny were croaked (which can only exacerbate Ansom's mental state). In addition, either Stanley's on his way back (and possibly with dwagons that have gained levels!), which makes conquering GK now all the more imperative, or Stanley has FAQ, a hidden city that Ansom will never find -- unless he captures a certain croakamancer who used to live there.

Ansom's in a bad spot, and it's not because Wanda or Sizemore are phenomenal casters. It's because Parson figured out how to play Ansom like a fiddle, because Parson out maneuvered Webinar in the tunnels, because Stanley got out of Ansom's hair at the right time, and because Parson got a bit lucky (by Stanley not dying in the confrontation with Jillian and the Transylvitians)

Edit: Although even that last bit, Parson had a small hand in, by telling mad Jack to get back to GK by hook or by crook, and when Jack got his marbles back, he manipulated the field to do just that.

[Kyouhen]

An instant army for a few turns every time you win a major battle is an enormous advantage, unless there are some strategies to negate uncroaked we have not seen yet.

I can think of one such strategy. Your instant army has a lifespan of 2 or 3 turns. To make it effective the Croakamancer has to be in said army. You sit around and avoid it for 2 or 3 turns, let the army crumble, then swarm it and slaughter the 'mancer. I'd be willing to be uncroaked infantry have horrible move, as is typical of undead in other games, and out in the open field it would be simple to just stay out of their reach until they crumble. Problem solved.

[Anteros]

I can think of one such strategy. Your instant army has a lifespan of 2 or 3 turns. To make it effective the Croakamancer has to be in said army. You sit around and avoid it for 2 or 3 turns, let the army crumble, then swarm it and slaughter the 'mancer. I'd be willing to be uncroaked infantry have horrible move, as is typical of undead in other games, and out in the open field it would be simple to just stay out of their reach until they crumble. Problem solved.

He said every time he wins a major battle. If he just won a major battle against you, what makes you think you will have the troops to do such a thing? Or that it would be alone? You uncroak the troops, and send them into conflict in other hexes where other parts of the army are fighting. This isn't happening in a vacuum, and your enemy is going to take away all that mobility with his other forces.

[Wrecan]

Except they do come out of nowhere.

No they don't We've known for a long time that Wanda can uncroak large amounts of troops. I mean, in the second strip, Wanda makes a point of pointing out that most of GK's troops are uncroaked infantry.

There is nothing unexpected about this development, except the panache with which it has been executed.

[fendrin]

Aye, but you're not counting 2'000 marbits in that, all of which were likely committed to the underground fighting. If over 2k Jetstone went underground too, that would mean close to half the coalition was croaked down there, which seems a bit extreme for the 300-ish of Parsons forces.

First off, if you count the Marbits in, the 'bulk' of the forces would only be about 3k. Webby would have only been bringing in an additional thousand to reinforce the Marbits. That's only about a third of the RCC forces; about what you would expect for a major offensive. That's only ~10:1 (using your figure of 300 GK troops).

Second, Thermopylae, the most famous account of asymmetric warfare. Herodotus' numbers may have been exaggerated, but the Greeks were still facing much more than ~10:1 odds (Herodotus puts it at ~1000:1).

Like in real estate, winning an asymmetric battle is all about location, location, location. GK had many fewer forces, but they had better leadership (between Sizemore & Parson's bonuses), terrain advantages (in the form of knowing the layout of the tunnels, and especially, being able to reshape the battlefield), and ways of destroying large swaths of enemies with little or no risk to themselves (traps, collapsing tunnels). Oh, and don't forget the fact that Sizemore could heal the golems. All of these things act as force multipliers.

[Kyouhen]

Except they do come out of nowhere. You make a setting and have characters interact and react with it. You don't make characters and have a setting interact and react with them. And the problem here is not that a new rule was introduced exactly. It's that a new rule was introduced that arbitrarily turns the tide of the story, with no previous indication of such a rule.

This development was on par with Parson having Maggie cast a spell to destroy Ansom's mind. We have no indication she can do such a thing, and it completely changes the story. That makes it bad writing.

Up until this point we were working under the assumption the Parson had to defend Gobwin Knob, which was greatly weaker than the invading force. In this comic we find that the author essentially lied to us, and Gobwin Knob is far more powerful than indicated.

Maybe in the next comic Parson can have thousands of reinforcements show up from another city that Tool was allied with. We have no indication of such a thing, but it's no more outlandish than this.

All we got from this new rule is that a Croakamancer can mass-raise units. We already knew that a city was on one hex, we already knew that the city was divided into 3 zones, and we knew from the very beginning that Croakamancers need to be in the same hex (or zone) as the target they want to uncroak. Doesn't seem overly out of nowhere to me.

Maggie can't cast a spell to destroy Ansom's mind. All she did was cast a spell that allowed Parson to communicate with Ansom. It was all psychology from there.

Gobwin Knob IS weaker than the invading force. It's just that the leader of the invading force is nearly as incompetent as Stanley (for different reasons) and screwed up on an epic level. Remember, Parson only put his odds of surviving the turn at 58.9%. That would be assuming that Ansom would send a strong Warlord into the tunnels.

If troops from an allied city showed up, THEN you could make claims of bad writing. We already know that Stanley's on his own in this. If he had any allies they would have been there already, or Parson would be aware of them.

[Etheric]

Stanley still got pwned, foolmancer or not. Out of 30 dwagons, only 6 escaped, and Transyvilto didn't had any casters of their own.

Thing is, a mancer can indeed help you a lot on the battlefield, but if he's fighting, then he isn't using his powers for something equally valuable back in your main base, AND you still need to spend resources to protect them in the open.

Taking a mancer into battle is screaming to get ganked. And they are much more squishy than warlords.

You take them to big battles. And you are missing the part where for the start of the battle Jack was a bystander and not in control of his powers.

Jacks illusions are powerful, at which point as the opposing side you really have no idea what is going on in the battle, which makes it impossible to control your forces effectively. If half of your force is off fighting illusions while the other half gets ganked by the real army. Warfare is about Command, Control, CONCENTRATION and Communication. With Illusions you can completely mess up your opponents on most of that.

Beating half or a quarter of your oppenents force at a time is vastly easier than fighting all of it at once. Illusions would allow you to do that easily. Your opponent would never know which way a fight was actually going, should I reinfoce one side or not? If you can't see how that can turn a battle you are lacking in immagination.

Of course I am spectulating here, as in common with everything else we have no real idea of the power of the illusions, what they can do what they can't. To be honest I don't think the Authors have either, which is part of the problem of the strip.

[Eraniverse]

The big problem with Erf is that almost every major plot point is like a Deus Ex Machina. We have no idea of the rules or boundaries of the setting, so any solution proposed to any problem comes conveniently out of nowhere.

It's not necessarily bad at first, but as the story drags along it gets older and older. As we have progressed through Erf it's changed from "I wonder what strategy Parson will use to save himself now?" to "I wonder what new rule will be invented to save Parson now?" That's a problem to me.

We're not in the introduction any more, this comic has been out for what? Two or three years? And the setting is still so undefined that the author gets to create new rules to suit the story at any given time. I understand that this is the lure for Erf to many of you, but at some point it has to stop and there have to be actual hard and fast rules for a setting.

Bad. Writing.

Explicit tactical genius tends to be boring dramatically. Would Ocean's 11 for example have been nearly as entertaining if they laid out the whole plan of the caper before we actually got to see the unexpected bits in action? There's only so much "Well, I expect them to go here so I will place these here to take advantage" *They go where predicted and the plan works* a plot can tolerate and still be a plot rather than a tactical manual.

Could you give me an example of some fiction that demonstrates the type of superior tactics you'd prefer for this story? I just want to know what you're aiming for.

On another note, I've been expecting, nay, craving the zombie horde ever since Wanda's specialization was revealed. If you didn't see this coming...

[BRC]

Except they do come out of nowhere. You make a setting and have characters interact and react with it. You don't make characters and have a setting interact and react with them. And the problem here is not that a new rule was introduced exactly. It's that a new rule was introduced that arbitrarily turns the tide of the story, with no previous indication of such a rule.

This development was on par with Parson having Maggie cast a spell to destroy Ansom's mind. We have no indication she can do such a thing, and it completely changes the story. That makes it bad writing.

Up until this point we were working under the assumption the Parson had to defend Gobwin Knob, which was greatly weaker than the invading force. In this comic we find that the author essentially lied to us, and Gobwin Knob is far more powerful than indicated.

Maybe in the next comic Parson can have thousands of reinforcements show up from another city that Tool was allied with. We have no indication of such a thing, but it's no more outlandish than this.

Not really, We know that Croakamancers create and control Uncreaked troops, we didn't know the specifics, but we knew it happened. We knew Wanda was a Croakamancer of considerable skill, ergo, this isn't exaclty "Out of Nowhere". If Wanda had been introduced as a Findamancer, who then turned out to be a master croakamancer as well, that would have been different. And this is much differeant that a thousand allies showing up to help, with this mass-uncroaking what wanda has created is a thousand highly weak units..

Gobwin Knob is more powerful than indicated, but it is in that position because of the situation. Had they attempted a straight-up fight Wanda couldn't have pulled this trick off. Instead Parson's psychological warfare made ansom send in troops with weak leadership into territory that had been well-prepared for just such an assault. Ansom fell into Parson's trap, which provided Wanda with the corpses she needed to build this Buffer Army. Wanda's origional estimate as to GK's chances was the reason for the ultimate warlord spell. Using conventional Erf-Tactics GK was totally screwed, so they summoned Parson who chould think outside the box and even the odds. You're complaining that the Gordian Knot was really easy to undo because Alexsander could cut it in half with his sword.

[fendrin]

...it's no more outlandish than this.

Hold on a sec. What's so outlandish about a Croakamancer uncroaking troops?
Seriously, people have been predicting this for weeks. Months even.

I mean really, if a croakamancer can summon Parson from the far reaches of all existence, but can't raise an entire hex/zone of croaked, there is something seriously wrong.

[Nargrakhan]

The sun rises in the East, because that's the way "East" is defined. Has something to do with a celestial body's rotation.

Aye. Depends on the planet's rotation and where "magnetic north" is from that prospective.

The sun rises from the West, and sets in the East on Venus (if you could see the sun that is), because it spins backwards from the rest of the solar system.

Uranus rotates on it's side, and magnetic north is NOT on the top of the globe. It has a magnetic east! The sun rises in the north, and sets in the south on that planet (again, if you could really see the sun).

[Thydron]

Everyone seems to be forgetting that if Ansom hadn't sent his troops into the tunnels a turn early, (for no real reason) then Wanda wouldn't have been able to raise the dead & the coalition would still be winning easily- this change of fortunes is wholly down to Ansom's bad decisions- if the coalition had attacked together this coming turn they probably would have taken the city easily.

Like Parson said, "Ansom assumes I'm not going to do anything on my turn but dig in"; all of Parson's schemes have been designed to play Ansom, and apart from not picking Jillian up himself after she was released, he seems to be doing quite well at it.