Book 2 – Page 87

[Salem]

I think oslecamo's point was that if promoting someone to CWL cost so much, then a side that had already been forced to harvest some of its units to continue to pay the upkeep of others shouldn't have had enough to do it.

Okay, that's a fair point. As I said, though, Expense comes in degrees.

If it's, say, 500 or 1000 shmuckers, that would be well within JS's day-to-day operating expenses... and though it would guarantee that some JS units would not survive to next turn because they couldn't cover all that upkeep, it would still prevent the loss of far more in combat. I agree that it can't be 25000 or something seriously large. Just big enough you don't want to do it willy-nilly.

With those numbers too it would be fair to assume that the upkeep cost of all troops would be maintained. Since a portion of JS units were present for the battle and win or lose they were not all going to live. Good chance that a large portion if not all of the smaller cost range up there would not be missed.

Though I'm not sure they had to pay anything to promote Trem.

[Lamech]

So anyone have a guess what the double surviving means? Does he have a temp lifespan or something? Was that scene of the dish meaning charlie is tapping bunny or something?

Charlie was tapping bunny. The double presumably has a temporary life although we aren't sure yet. Might be a 'till end of turn. It might end at the start of Jetstones new turn. Or it might have a number of turn. Another possibility is it burns juice from the dittomancer and will last as long as juice keeps flowing. Although in that cases to make sense with Erfworld's turn based nature I suspect juice would be used either at turn ends or when the double is doing stuff.

I prefer the idea that the double will last as long as Lloyd sustains the juice. That sets up for a much more dramatic end to the double than it merely fading at turn's end. The double could be kept around for dozens of turns, filling in for the real king, all the way up until Lloyd gets called upon to use too much of his juice at once, concentration starts wavering, and THEN the duplicate goes *poof*.

The duplicate may even be convincing enough that it can sustain the side, with only a handful of individuals knowing that the real king is actually dead. Slately didn't seem like the sort of Ruler that routinely toured his kingdom or bothered leaving the city much. They might be able to pull it off.

There is no difference between Slately and the dupe, except the dupe presumably requires juice or somesuch. Loyd is the only one that knows (and Don, and Bunny, and Charlie). If it does require his juice he'll just need to make up an excuse: "I permanently expended some of my juice to save you." The other casters will probably figure out its bunk though.

Point is, the dupe is perfectly convincing. No one will know its not the king.

[0beron]

There is no difference between Slately and the dupe, except the dupe presumably requires juice or somesuch. Loyd is the only one that knows (and Don, and Bunny, and Charlie). If it does require his juice he'll just need to make up an excuse: "I permanently expended some of my juice to save you." The other casters will probably figure out its bunk though.
Point is, the dupe is perfectly convincing. No one will know its not the king.

...eh, I'm pretty sure anyone in the stack knows. Definitely the other casters would. If you were there "in real life" it'd have been easy to see the sequence of events. So yes, they could convince the dupe he is real, but they'd have to disband the basic units who survived, and make the other casters stay mum too.

[Salem]

There is no difference between Slately and the dupe, except the dupe presumably requires juice or somesuch. Loyd is the only one that knows (and Don, and Bunny, and Charlie). If it does require his juice he'll just need to make up an excuse: "I permanently expended some of my juice to save you." The other casters will probably figure out its bunk though.
Point is, the dupe is perfectly convincing. No one will know its not the king.

...eh, I'm pretty sure anyone in the stack knows. Definitely the other casters would. If you were there "in real life" it'd have been easy to see the sequence of events. So yes, they could convince the dupe he is real, but they'd have to disband the basic units who survived, and make the other casters stay mum too.

OR! Which is only marginally less evil, they could do brainwipeamancy.

[bladestorm]

There is no difference between Slately and the dupe, except the dupe presumably requires juice or somesuch. Loyd is the only one that knows (and Don, and Bunny, and Charlie). If it does require his juice he'll just need to make up an excuse: "I permanently expended some of my juice to save you." The other casters will probably figure out its bunk though.
Point is, the dupe is perfectly convincing. No one will know its not the king.

...eh, I'm pretty sure anyone in the stack knows. Definitely the other casters would. If you were there "in real life" it'd have been easy to see the sequence of events. So yes, they could convince the dupe he is real, but they'd have to disband the basic units who survived, and make the other casters stay mum too.

OR! Which is only marginally less evil, they could do brainwipeamancy.

The current non-caster units in the stack are easy to handle. Send them off on the next wave to counter-attack GK. Have them convinced that Jetstone has the enemy on the ropes, when it is really a suicide mission. Newly popped units won't know any different.

The dupe, though, seems a bit more interactive with his troops, especially Ace. Ace may not want to have thoughts that this isn't his King, and just relish in the fact that someone is taking his ideas about accessories seriously for once. Poor guy is gonna be shattered when he finds out the truth.

[wrecan]

So why didn't he order the dwagon drop and promote whichever warlord survived?

Because Stanley, not Parson, chooses CWLs, and Stanley is not the sort of person who could be convinced to countermand the order he just gave.

Also, Sylvia's threat to burn the tower down was obviously meant to put some fire under the men to really scour the atrium for any surviving JS people. Archer's fearful reaction is enough to evidence that.

[Lamech]

There is no difference between Slately and the dupe, except the dupe presumably requires juice or somesuch. Loyd is the only one that knows (and Don, and Bunny, and Charlie). If it does require his juice he'll just need to make up an excuse: "I permanently expended some of my juice to save you." The other casters will probably figure out its bunk though.
Point is, the dupe is perfectly convincing. No one will know its not the king.

...eh, I'm pretty sure anyone in the stack knows. Definitely the other casters would. If you were there "in real life" it'd have been easy to see the sequence of events. So yes, they could convince the dupe he is real, but they'd have to disband the basic units who survived, and make the other casters stay mum too.

Pretty sure its only Loyd so far. Everyone else is all cheer and smiles and he his all so down trodden. Like Bunny said, there was a lot of blasting and confusion. Turn you head away for a second and you see the king blasting an archon that just killed his dupe. Right? As long as you don't think too hard and want to believe the king is alive its easy!

[CordialLupine]

Just joined this forum, absolutely love this comic series, look forward to it every day. Props to Rob for an excellent story!

On this comic: Highly curious as to Charlie's next move. Parson's, "Great. How many prophecies am I fufilling?" comment is priceless. I hope for a huge series of comics where they explain tons of crap, like the Snarl explanation from Order of the Stick.

[drachefly]

The current non-caster units in the stack are easy to handle. Send them off on the next wave to counter-attack GK. Have them convinced that Jetstone has the enemy on the ropes, when it is really a suicide mission. Newly popped units won't know any different.

For reasons that will become obvious if you think about it for about five seconds once it's been pointed out, that is a terrible idea.

[bladestorm]

The current non-caster units in the stack are easy to handle. Send them off on the next wave to counter-attack GK. Have them convinced that Jetstone has the enemy on the ropes, when it is really a suicide mission. Newly popped units won't know any different.

For reasons that will become obvious if you think about it for about five seconds once it's been pointed out, that is a terrible idea.

It's completely sound. Have them lead by the Ossomer dupe. When he depops, they are left without leadership, imagined or not, and get slaughtered. No tales to tell afterwards about being set up by the king, who lets the new troops know of the treachery of GK when they slaughtered innocent Jetstone troops.

[Avic]

...eh, I'm pretty sure anyone in the stack knows. Definitely the other casters would.

From his reactions after the fact, it doesn't seem as though Ace knows. Also, from what I can tell, the majority of casters don't investigate too much into the disciplines of other types of magic, other than a cursory understanding, and even when they do, they don't appear to grasp the concepts involved very well even when they're the same "class" of magic. A dittomancy spell that is presumably of such high level may be beyond the knowledge base of the other casters present.

[Nnelg]

For reasons that will become obvious if you think about it for about five seconds once it's been pointed out, that is a terrible idea.

It's completely sound. Have them lead by the Ossomer dupe. When he depops, they are left without leadership, imagined or not, and get slaughtered. No tales to tell afterwards about being set up by the king, who lets the new troops know of the treachery of GK when they slaughtered innocent Jetstone troops.

It's doable, but still a horrible plan. It gains nothing. There's just no reason to waste good troops on a pointless (and most likely futile) coverup.

...eh, I'm pretty sure anyone in the stack knows. Definitely the other casters would.

From his reactions after the fact, it doesn't seem as though Ace knows. Also, from what I can tell, the majority of casters don't investigate too much into the disciplines of other types of magic, other than a cursory understanding, and even when they do, they don't appear to grasp the concepts involved very well even when they're the same "class" of magic. A dittomancy spell that is presumably of such high level may be beyond the knowledge base of the other casters present.

Right: it's like asking a chemist to know the half-life of a free neutron. It's outside of his field; I for one wouldn't expect him to even know that free neutrons are unstable.

[Salem]

The current non-caster units in the stack are easy to handle. Send them off on the next wave to counter-attack GK. Have them convinced that Jetstone has the enemy on the ropes, when it is really a suicide mission. Newly popped units won't know any different.

For reasons that will become obvious if you think about it for about five seconds once it's been pointed out, that is a terrible idea.

It's completely sound. Have them lead by the Ossomer dupe. When he depops, they are left without leadership, imagined or not, and get slaughtered. No tales to tell afterwards about being set up by the king, who lets the new troops know of the treachery of GK when they slaughtered innocent Jetstone troops.

I think Drachefly was trying to point out that you'd be giving information to your enemy that you think coudl destabalize your entire side, rather than just asking them to be quiet. GRanted you could hope to propaganda away the intel GK could feed your side calling them liars, and keeping the king from public view, but you'd be giving that intel to your enemy, which doesn't seem to wise. Better just to say they were decrypted and murder them out of sight.

[Kyrt]

I prefer the idea that the double will last as long as Lloyd sustains the juice. That sets up for a much more dramatic end to the double than it merely fading at turn's end. The double could be kept around for dozens of turns, filling in for the real king, all the way up until Lloyd gets called upon to use too much of his juice at once, concentration starts wavering, and THEN the duplicate goes *poof*.

Even were he to be sustained by juice, it seems very doubtful that Slately will survive the end of turn. Nor do i see the dupe becoming permanent....especially given Lloyds reaction. I'd say the spell has a fixed duration...most likely till the end of turn.

[oslecamo2_temp]

I think oslecamo's point was that if promoting someone to CWL cost so much, then a side that had already been forced to harvest some of its units to continue to pay the upkeep of others shouldn't have had enough to do it.

Okay, that's a fair point. As I said, though, Expense comes in degrees.

If it's, say, 500 or 1000 shmuckers, that would be well within JS's day-to-day operating expenses... and though it would guarantee that some JS units would not survive to next turn because they couldn't cover all that upkeep, it would still prevent the loss of far more in combat. I agree that it can't be 25000 or something seriously large. Just big enough you don't want to do it willy-nilly.

With those numbers too it would be fair to assume that the upkeep cost of all troops would be maintained. Since a portion of JS units were present for the battle and win or lose they were not all going to live. Good chance that a large portion if not all of the smaller cost range up there would not be missed.

Though I'm not sure they had to pay anything to promote Trem.

Exactly. Promoting units to heir/heavy has been explicitly stated to cost money. Promoting warlords to CWL has not ever been mentioned as costing a single smucker, and even sides that are extremely tight on money (like the current FAQ and Jetstone) have no trouble at all nominating new CWLs, even when they can't afford an heir.

[quote= junovalkyrie]
Not taking oslecamo's side here, BTW. I suspect that the answer is something like the mechanic effataigus mentioned where the cost to promote a CWL differs based on the circumstances.

Alas, that theory crashes on the fact that tactical genius Hamster would rather risk a LOT going trough the MK than simply geting a new CWL when GK has money to spare. He already burned a small fortune promoting a bunch of hobgobwins to heavies while promoting himself to field unit. He wouldn't have any trouble with burning yet more money to instantly get a new CWL on the frontline.

So, really, what's more likely? That's there's some extremely complex alghorytm that wildly fluctuates to the point sides with an empty treasury promote CWLs whitout trouble but a side that's filthy rich can't afford it? Or that it simply isn't money based?

[Sieggy]

The current non-caster units in the stack are easy to handle. Send them off on the next wave to counter-attack GK. Have them convinced that Jetstone has the enemy on the ropes, when it is really a suicide mission. Newly popped units won't know any different.

For reasons that will become obvious if you think about it for about five seconds once it's been pointed out, that is a terrible idea.

It's completely sound. Have them lead by the Ossomer dupe. When he depops, they are left without leadership, imagined or not, and get slaughtered. No tales to tell afterwards about being set up by the king, who lets the new troops know of the treachery of GK when they slaughtered innocent Jetstone troops.

What Ossomer dupe?

[bladestorm]

I think Drachefly was trying to point out that you'd be giving information to your enemy that you think coudl destabalize your entire side, rather than just asking them to be quiet. GRanted you could hope to propaganda away the intel GK could feed your side calling them liars, and keeping the king from public view, but you'd be giving that intel to your enemy, which doesn't seem to wise. Better just to say they were decrypted and murder them out of sight.

Only if they get decrypted. If they get slaughtered on this turn by Sylvia and the dragons, Jetstone can end turn. GK's turn is already gone thanks to Kingworld. The corpses would be depopped before they could be decrypted.

[multilis]

No one would care imo if king was dupe if was just as good or just a different small expense.

The problem is probably that spell has limited duration, such as single turn.

[Nnelg]

I think Drachefly was trying to point out that you'd be giving information to your enemy that you think coudl destabalize your entire side, rather than just asking them to be quiet.

Or ordering them to.

Only if they get decrypted. If they get slaughtered on this turn by Sylvia and the dragons, Jetstone can end turn. GK's turn is already gone thanks to Kingworld. The corpses would be depopped before they could be decrypted.

Jetstone has no way of knowing that Wanda's in the MK. They can only act on the premise that every corpse on the battlefield can (and probably will) be decrypted.

[Lamech]

Jetstone has no way of knowing that Wanda's in the MK. They can only act on the premise that every corpse on the battlefield can (and probably will) be decrypted.

Yeah, this crucial fact is part of the reason why Jetstone doesn't have any good options. If Jetstone charges in the garrison hard (chief warlord, and casters) Sylvia will burn it to the ground, and quite possibly catch and croak a bunch of units. If they try going in without ever risking major assets, and Wanda was in the garrison GK would have too much leadership (Sylvia+Wanda) to get a good kill-to-death ratio, and they make GK stronger. If they abandon the city they lose everything remaining in the garrison and all the dwagons live.

Actually lets see what would happen with different tactics, or more to the point what Jetstone would predict would happen.

1) Charge in hard with Trem and casters. Wanda is forced into the MK. Garrison is burned. Jetstone loses the remainder of its leadership corp, and caster corp. Haggar noms it.
2) Remove major assests from the city and attack with remaining forces. Wanda can decrypt forces, and those forces will not be able to compete with the combined bonus of Artemis+Wanda. GK forces simply grow stronger.
3) Run. Some units in the garrison are lost, GK gets a bit stronger.

The main problem I see with 2 and 3 is those dwagons can simply dash to their remaining capital and burn it. Which means the only viable plan is charging, but if they do that Sylvia can burn the garrison and possibly catch the Jetstone forces inside.