Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) – Episode 044

[the_tick_rules]

I'm interested to hear how Haffaton falls. Given Wanda was working for FAQ and Haffaton was never mentioned in the main comic it's safe to assume they aren't around anymore.

[SteveMB]

So here's a lovely little puzzle!

Who's turn is it now? Shouldn't Jillian's move have reverted to 0 as soon as she entered a hex as a non-prisoner?
Or does she get the rest of today to use Haffaton's turn?

Recall that when Jillian "escaped" in Book 1, she as taken on a dwagon ride to the pickup point (i.e. moved on Gobwin Knob's turn). That ploy couldn't really be expected to fool anyone unless an actual legitimate escape could reasonably have put her in the same place (which is easiest to arrange if that scenario, too, would involve her moving on GK's turn).

[Shai_hulud]

http://youtu.be/f5IRI4oHKNU

[Raza]

Under the circumstances, I'm surprised that she doesn't feel duty-bound to try to assassinate Haffaton's ruler.

A side as big as Haffaton must have an heir/heir-designate, and tons of capital sites. And that's even assuming the Ruler is in the Capital...they might not be. Heck, OLIVE might be the ruler by now, and therefore constantly afield or in the MK.

Possible, but all of those things would prevent Jillian's caster-combo covered decapitation strike plan as well. She believes in that and considers it the best hope for FAQ's future, so by the same logic going in and doing it personally right now should seem attractive as well.

Mmm. Having multiple capital sites and a caster for a ruler would offer a unique security advantage. You could visit the magic kingdom, re-declare your capital and pop over pretty much at will.

S'like side-wide immunity to critical hits. Especially if you've got leadership staff of more casters who can cover your ass while in the MK.

[Jeivar]

"Not her strongest attributes" doesn't mean "you will never find any examples of".
. . . .
95% of what we have seen of her is erratic, impulsive, and reckless. 5% of the time she behaves in a manner that others would agrees makes sense. So I concur with you that there are a few glimmering moments when she has forethought, patience, tact, or discipline, but those few moments are not what have come to define Jillian.

Yeah. We've seen Wanda laugh. That doesn't mean she's a cheerful person.

As for the theory that Wanda deliberately slipped information to Jillian and then let her escape; I don't know about that. It does fit well with Wanda's established history of manipulation and Jillian's established history of being manipulated, but I don't see how Wanda could have predicted this exact turn of events; That introducing Jillian to the tombstone concept and getting her to talk about dead people she cared about would give her the idea to "trick" Wanda into shattering a tombstone and providing Jillian with the means to escape. That's wayyy too dependent on Jillian getting a specific idea and behaving in a specific way.

[BCCroaker]

"Not her strongest attributes" doesn't mean "you will never find any examples of".
. . . .
95% of what we have seen of her is erratic, impulsive, and reckless. 5% of the time she behaves in a manner that others would agrees makes sense. So I concur with you that there are a few glimmering moments when she has forethought, patience, tact, or discipline, but those few moments are not what have come to define Jillian.

Yeah. We've seen Wanda laugh. That doesn't mean she's a cheerful person.

As for the theory that Wanda deliberately slipped information to Jillian and then let her escape; I don't know about that. It does fit well with Wanda's established history of manipulation and Jillian's established history of being manipulated, but I don't see how Wanda could have predicted this exact turn of events; That introducing Jillian to the tombstone concept and getting her to talk about dead people she cared about would give her the idea to "trick" Wanda into shattering a tombstone and providing Jillian with the means to escape. That's wayyy too dependent on Jillian getting a specific idea and behaving in a specific way.

Wanda didn't have to give Jillian a specific out from the box, just relax the conditions a little. Jillian a monobrain, intelligence all invested in one activity, in this case escape and fight again. Multibrain Wanda didn't buy that story about Kiln Kenny for a minute - she was picking out Jillians every lie and evasion early in the torture session.
And Kiln Kenny is also a David Brin reference (Kil'n People).

[ftl]

To people saying that Jillian should have tried to find and croak the ruler - she probably judged that way too risky. While the city as a whole is weakly defended, it would still be reasonable to expect that the ruler would have a guard of at least one heavy or something like that! Or being well-armed themselves.

And Jillian is only armed with what she could grab off low-level uncroaked, probably not particularly good weaponry. She may be a pretty high-level Warlord, but not enough to take out a ruler all by herself.

Yeah, I think that going for a decapitation strike *alone* would just lead to dying or being captured again. I have no problem with Jillian thinking the same way and preferring to get the heck out of dodge rather than sticking around.

[DoctorJest]

To people saying that Jillian should have tried to find and croak the ruler - she probably judged that way too risky. While the city as a whole is weakly defended, it would still be reasonable to expect that the ruler would have a guard of at least one heavy or something like that! Or being well-armed themselves.

And Jillian is only armed with what she could grab off low-level uncroaked, probably not particularly good weaponry. She may be a pretty high-level Warlord, but not enough to take out a ruler all by herself.

Yeah, I think that going for a decapitation strike *alone* would just lead to dying or being captured again. I have no problem with Jillian thinking the same way and preferring to get the heck out of dodge rather than sticking around.

She doesn't even know the ruler is there. Rulers can leave the capital, as Stanley proved in book one.

[Housellama]

This update does pose a lot of questions about the status of captured units. The fact that she was able to move between hexes could simply be a function of the fact that the City encompasses the stone garden as well, and that she is considered a Haffaton unit when she is captured. But I kind of doubt that.

I think captured units are considered to be in their own category. They move on the turn of the Side that captured them, but are still the unit of another Side until turned. It does raise the question of turn order and Battlespaces. I'm guessing that Jillian will be on Haffaton's turn until she leaves that Battlespace, then return to FAQ's natural Turn.

[Aquillion]

Other disciplines are also capable of giving you free units, en-masse. Dirtamancy can turn your crap into golems (combined with yellow dwagons, you get tons of free units), dollamancers make cloth golems, turmanancy can make other troops your own troops, dittomancy can double your troops.... casters making units is not limited to the uncroaked.

My assumption would be that those are much more limited: More expensive to create, still requiring upkeep, etc. We've seen (several times now) sides that heavily depended on Croakamancy for their armies, and we've never seen anyone really depend on any other disciplines -- crap golems are nice backup, but weren't Gobwin Knob's main force the way its army of undead was. Most other special units seem more like things you can pop if you happen to have a caster of that type than a real 'power' of those casters -- they're not treated as a unique magical thing, just as another type of unit.

Undead are different. They're treated as something strategically distinct. Remember, Wanda was able to raise an entire army of weak, rapidly-decaying undead, and was able to almost turn things around for her original side purely with her unit-making powers. We've seen no indication that any other discipline is capable of doing that.

And Turnamancy appears to be extremely expensive -- stealing one unit can drain a big chunk of your juice, and you presumably have to pay upkeep for the new unit.

[Shai_hulud]

we've never seen anyone really depend on any other disciplines -- crap golems are nice backup, but weren't Gobwin Knob's main force the way its army of undead was.

Actually during Aces story it is stated that Jetstone was heavily dependent on cloth based Dollamancy. Like, rewrite their whole sides strategy kind of dependent. They will probably be even more so now, unless Slately is no longer gung-ho on accessories since his death.

[Lamech]

We've seen (several times now) sides that heavily depended on Croakamancy for their armies, and we've never seen anyone really depend on any other disciplines -- crap golems are nice backup, but weren't Gobwin Knob's main force the way its army of undead was. Most other special units seem more like things you can pop if you happen to have a caster of that type than a real 'power' of those casters -- they're not treated as a unique magical thing, just as another type of unit.

Undead are different. They're treated as something strategically distinct. Remember, Wanda was able to raise an entire army of weak, rapidly-decaying undead, and was able to almost turn things around for her original side purely with her unit-making powers. We've seen no indication that any other discipline is capable of doing that.

Except if you note Wanda first needed Sizemore to recruit all those units for her. Wanda's croakamancy would have done jack and squat, if Sizemore didn't croak all the units first. Its a great force multiplier, and it can be completely crushing if you have enough force multipliers. However, the units can't be long term, there is no ability to store up. There temporary boosts, every other disciplines units can be long term.

Croakamancy is great if your on the warpath with lots of kills, but anytime my side is fairly stable, I'll take a dirtamancers crap golems or a hatamancer's hat golems every time.

[0beron]

Actually you CAN store up for Croakamancy. Corpses persist if they are moved from the hex they are croaked in. As I understand it, that is part of the purpose of Wanda's Haffaton Garden. She keeps bodies there to be uncroaked.

[gameboy1234]

And Kiln Kenny is also a David Brin reference (Kil'n People).

It could be, but it's also very close in pronunciation to a well-known Irish town, county and surname. Personally I'd guess it's a pun on Kilkenny (and I thought the South Park reference someone mentioned as good too, as it's also "kill Kenny," which would make it a triple pun.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilkenny

[Lamech]

Actually you CAN store up for Croakamancy. Corpses persist if they are moved from the hex they are croaked in. As I understand it, that is part of the purpose of Wanda's Haffaton Garden. She keeps bodies there to be uncroaked.

They still decay to some degree and I think it was implied that these are less useful for units. That said it would be a large improvement for croakamancy, even if the resultant is a fairly weak uncroaked.

[Chit Rule Railroad]

A side as big as Haffaton must have an heir/heir-designate, and tons of capital sites. And that's even assuming the Ruler is in the Capital...they might not be. Heck, OLIVE might be the ruler by now, and therefore constantly afield or in the MK.

Possible, but all of those things would prevent Jillian's caster-combo covered decapitation strike plan as well. She believes in that and considers it the best hope for FAQ's future, so by the same logic going in and doing it personally right now should seem attractive as well.

Having Faq's lookamancer and predictamancer in the strike force would help counter some of those measures.

[udat]

And Kiln Kenny is also a David Brin reference (Kil'n People).

It could be, but it's also very close in pronunciation to a well-known Irish town, county and surname.

And beer!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilkenny_%28beer%29

[bladestorm]

Other disciplines are also capable of giving you free units, en-masse. Dirtamancy can turn your crap into golems (combined with yellow dwagons, you get tons of free units), dollamancers make cloth golems, turmanancy can make other troops your own troops, dittomancy can double your troops.... casters making units is not limited to the uncroaked.

My assumption would be that those are much more limited: More expensive to create, still requiring upkeep, etc. We've seen (several times now) sides that heavily depended on Croakamancy for their armies, and we've never seen anyone really depend on any other disciplines -- crap golems are nice backup, but weren't Gobwin Knob's main force the way its army of undead was. Most other special units seem more like things you can pop if you happen to have a caster of that type than a real 'power' of those casters -- they're not treated as a unique magical thing, just as another type of unit.

Undead are different. They're treated as something strategically distinct. Remember, Wanda was able to raise an entire army of weak, rapidly-decaying undead, and was able to almost turn things around for her original side purely with her unit-making powers. We've seen no indication that any other discipline is capable of doing that.

And Turnamancy appears to be extremely expensive -- stealing one unit can drain a big chunk of your juice, and you presumably have to pay upkeep for the new unit.

The differences in the units doesn't offset the fact that the disciplines that create those other units have a ton more flexibility shown in their disciplines than Croakamancy has been shown. Other disciplines have been shown modifying production of their side during off turns or when not in conflict, and having several other options of how to use their disciplines to the benefit of their side. Croakamancy is shown as being limited to usefulness only during a direct conflict, with no long-term benefits to the side. Cities captured using an uncroaked army still need to be manned by units with upkeep.

Though in continuing that line of thought, that maybe why Haffaton eventually fell. It didn't have enough units with upkeep to protect their wide range of territory. They could station uncroaked to garrison the cities, but after a handful of turns, you have no more units there.

Overall, Croakamancy just seems so limited compared to the other disciplines. It seems to fit better into the core of Erfworld, based around continual strife,
but it's a discipline that cannot be used outside of that conflict. No bodies means no uncroaked. Without more to Croakamancy than just the quick and cheap numeric boost to your side during combat, the discipline itself just seems very undeveloped. What really separates a novice Croakamancer from a Master-class Croakamancer? The amount of time uncroaked units take to decay?

[Saladman]

The differences in the units doesn't offset the fact that the disciplines that create those other units have a ton more flexibility shown in their disciplines than Croakamancy has been shown.

Never forget Wanda has a headache spell! Seriously, I do think Croakamancy might have some spells we haven't seen. Either Wanda didn't catch them all (starting spells especially sound semi-random), or she's focused on what she's best at.

[0beron]

Never forget Wanda has a headache spell!

But does she have a headache spell because she's a Thinkamancer too? Is that technically a Thinkamancer spell? Is it one other Croakamancers would have? Or is it a hybrid she developed herself given her multi-school talents?