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It goes off the bearer's knowledge, or their side's knowledge anyway. So it's saying "Jillian has been freezing out Vinnie, Jillian just left with a large attack force, Jillian's working for Charlie, who wants something we have, [various other fiddly bits], what are the odds she's attacking here?" The agreement with Caesar is a demonstration of HIS strategic abilities, since his gut came to the same conclusion.
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Jul 10, 2016 18:56
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Charlie can't attack TV right now because he hasn't successfully pulled off the discovery theater that would allow him to justify the attack without revealing his Thinkamancy tapping powers to the Great Minds. Vanna is in place but hasn't seen or been told about Parson by her hosts, so Charlie is stuck until she makes a move. She has every reason to suspect Parson (or at least multiple someones, Charlie wouldn't tell her all the details) is in the city, but with TV on alert it's going to be very difficult to do anything without making Don very displeased. It's possible Charlie could strongarm Jillian into attacking TV then buying Parson off her when she claims him as part of conquering them, but that seems like a desperation move on Charlie's part because he prefers to play no-lose scenarios and Jillian failing to conquer TV would be a definite losing proposition. But then again, while Vanna failed to find evidence of Parson, she's now in a prime position in TV for an Arkendish link-up should Jillian attack...
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Jul 10, 2016 19:00
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Bruceski posted:It goes off the bearer's knowledge, or their side's knowledge anyway. So it's saying "Jillian has been freezing out Vinnie, Jillian just left with a large attack force, Jillian's working for Charlie, who wants something we have, [various other fiddly bits], what are the odds she's attacking here?" Yeah, if the bracer works like that, I definitely agree with your analysis. Not sure the bracer does work like that, though. Ben was not 100% certain of Vanna's status as a Charlie agent, yet the bracer told him as much anyway.
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Jul 10, 2016 19:01
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Bruceski posted:It goes off the bearer's knowledge, or their side's knowledge anyway. So it's saying "Jillian has been freezing out Vinnie, Jillian just left with a large attack force, Jillian's working for Charlie, who wants something we have, [various other fiddly bits], what are the odds she's attacking here?" Yes, if the bearer's knowledge is what it uses, Ceasar has approximately the same knowledge, it makes sense they would concur. It seems to operate on some fuzzy place between all knowledge and just the bearer's, though. Rand Brittain posted:Well, I mean, the 61% figure can't be correct, because Jillian didn't get up today thinking "well, maybe I'll attack Transylvito, and maybe I'll attack Gobwin Knob." If the bracer was using a priori cosmic knowledge, the figure would be either 1 or 0. It has to be basing its prediction on some other body of knowledge that's less than "all of it", whether that's what Transylvito knows or what Parson knows or whatever. On the other hand, if the set of information is greater than just the bearer's, then it would mean that whether she attacks Transylvito is based on events still undetermined. She's already put her operation in motion, but for example, if she's doing it for Charlie to capture Parson and if they decided to ransom Parson back to GK right now, she'd probably call it off. If she showed up and called a parley first to try diplomacy to achieve her objective, then the chance she'd attack would be less than 1. And so on.
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Jul 10, 2016 19:52
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Rand Brittain posted:Well, I mean, the 61% figure can't be correct, because Jillian didn't get up today thinking "well, maybe I'll attack Transylvito, and maybe I'll attack Gobwin Knob." If the bracer was using a priori cosmic knowledge, the figure would be either 1 or 0. It has to be basing its prediction on some other body of knowledge that's less than "all of it", whether that's what Transylvito knows or what Parson knows or whatever. Except, and this is the key. We don't know the exact phrasing the Ben used, it was whispered to the Bracer. "What are the chances Jillian will attack us in the next 5 turns." from there 61% can be interpreted as, "In the next 5 turns, there could be a change in situation that would cause this. It is more than 50/50, but there's still a 40% chance that nothing happens." Even Parson's battle calculation aren't perfect, because they ultimately say there's a very STRONG chance things will work out for you, but there's a chance it can mess up. The only thing the Bracer confirms with 100% likelihood is definitive statements. Such as "Is Vanna an agent of Charlescom." I also don't see why people think Charlie wouldn't attack TV through Faq. Transylvito represents a weakpoint in his mountain-guard which keeps Charlescomm safe. And Don doesn't know their comms are being hacked. If at any time he mentions allying with Gobwin Knob in a way that can be spied on, that represents a big problem for Charlie. That gives Gobwin Knob a direct avenue to Charlescomm. It's not like Jillian has never talked about turning on Transylvito, she does it in book 2 when she is trying to convince Wanda to turn to her side.
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Jul 10, 2016 19:53
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For what it's worth, I believe all magic in Erf is malicious. Fate gives with one hand and takes with the other. The bracer seems to work exactly like this: every time it says something is extremely likely to happen, some unseen twist lies in wait and messes with the prediction. In this case, I think the prediction is self-perpetuating: since attack on Transylvito seems likely, they'll take action that further makes the conflict more likely.
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Jul 10, 2016 20:12
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Hob_Gadling posted:For what it's worth, I believe all magic in Erf is malicious. Fate gives with one hand and takes with the other. The bracer seems to work exactly like this: every time it says something is extremely likely to happen, some unseen twist lies in wait and messes with the prediction. In this case, I think the prediction is self-perpetuating: since attack on Transylvito seems likely, they'll take action that further makes the conflict more likely. I don't know if I'd agree with that. There's stuff that's being done for dozens if not hundreds of turns during peacetime, like Dollamancers making raiment or Dirtamancers making golems, that have no malicious results. What's malicious about converting gems into schmuckers and back? Or using Hippymancy to prevent engagement? Saying the Mathamancy bracer forces self-perpetuating twists seems like selection bias to me. What about all the times Parson used it to calculate battle odds before choosing a plan? Is saying he had 3-2 odds of winning TBfGK somehow setting off a roller coaster of events that messes with the prediction that ultimately turned out to be correct anyways? He chose to take a truce with Charlie because Stanley had a 1 in 5 chance of being croaked fighting Jillian, where's the unseen twist that was lying in wait? The entire concept of Fate is definitely deeply rooted into the story, after all the ending of Book 1 revolved around it. I think it's a little stretched to say all magic is malicious by default though; a simpler explanation is that the story adheres to conservation of detail and omits the umpteen times magic is used without any significantly notable effects.
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Jul 10, 2016 22:05
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isndl posted:Saying the Mathamancy bracer forces self-perpetuating twists seems like selection bias to me. What about all the times Parson used it to calculate battle odds before choosing a plan? Because the bracer told there was 60% chance of winning, Charlie became convinced he needed to capture Parson alive. Without that, Charlie would have used his archons to blast the tower and get the Arkentool. Because he chose to believe it, the entire result changed. Something similar happened at the beginning of book 2. Wanda was convinced a decapitation strike would win the battle effortlessly because the bracers said so. As a result the entire fight became a horrible mess that almost cost them everything. Maybe "malicious" is a poor choice of words. The system seems self-correcting at a very deep level; you can gain a little, even a lot in a short time but sooner or later it's gonna catch up with you. Many of the stories seem to emphasize this aspect. Charlie has cheated fate for a long time and when he finally gets his, it's going to be spectacular. In a similar vein I'm very interested in seeing what the Maui tower does once something happens.
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Jul 10, 2016 22:48
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NihilCredo posted:Yeah, if the bracer works like that, I definitely agree with your analysis. Not the bearer's outlook, though; the bearer's knowledge. Ben wasn't certain, but apparently the totality of information that Ben potentially had available to him were he to remember it meant that the likelihood was so high. He just hadn't properly put it together.
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Jul 10, 2016 23:12
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Charlie doesn't need to officially know about Parson if Jillian attacks. Jillians is warrior queen of a new side that just backstabbed her friendly neighbour because she needed more cities. By coincidence she found Parson and traded him to Charlie. The bracer might or might not consider the calculation itself for its calculating. If it knows that knowing the result will influence the result, it could adjust for that.
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Jul 10, 2016 23:21
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nimby posted:The bracer might or might not consider the calculation itself for its calculating. If it knows that knowing the result will influence the result, it could adjust for that. I'm not sure if that's actually possible, though. There's no guarantee of that converging to a single value, is there? 
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Jul 11, 2016 00:42
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I just realized part of the reason Caesar was so quick to believe Jack and Parson about Jillian turning on her allies and backstabbing them is probably because of that one time she turned on him and tried to stab him.
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Jul 11, 2016 01:34
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Hob_Gadling posted:Because the bracer told there was 60% chance of winning, Charlie became convinced he needed to capture Parson alive. Without that, Charlie would have used his archons to blast the tower and get the Arkentool. Because he chose to believe it, the entire result changed. Something similar happened at the beginning of book 2. Wanda was convinced a decapitation strike would win the battle effortlessly because the bracers said so. As a result the entire fight became a horrible mess that almost cost them everything. Charlie said he preferred to have Parson alive, but was willing to kill him for the bracer. Those 3-2 odds were explicitly under the assumption that Charlie didn't interfere, which Charlie did later by signing a new contract with Ansom during the fight for the walls. In Book 2 Wanda was all set to hit Jetstone while their army was in the field, Parson twigged onto something not right, they captured/decrypted Ossomer and Parson ran new numbers of their 99% victory with Jillian's airforce/caster in mind and the result was 56% victory. There's no 'twists' here, just the bracer being used for planning with assumptions that aren't always caught before the plans are being executed. This is standard for any sort of planning in the real world, hence phrases like "no plan survives contact with the enemy". Maybe Fate is interfering more than is apparent on the surface because of how Charlie keeps cheating it, but that's a far cry from magic being inherently malicious or however else you want to rephrase it. From another perspective you might say that Charlie isn't dealing with Fate at all, because statistically on a long enough timeline you're going to run into spectacular problems and some of them can very well end you. Statistically, some people also survive those spectacular problems, even multiple spectacular problems. isndl fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Jul 11, 2016 |
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Jul 11, 2016 03:00
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The Faq/TV situation and Wanda's trial are currently set to ignite all at once it seems. Since the whole Peace Out plan seems like a setup to put the great minds on the MK poo poo list if not actually expunged from the city, I'm curious to how much more upheaval the casters can take before the whole city just straight up riots.
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Jul 12, 2016 00:51
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Yup, we got another scene change right when we're at a climactic point in a storyline. I do not see the peace spell working out well, especially since Roger is involved and he appears to be in contact with Jojo
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Jul 12, 2016 05:05
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Checked the latest strip and, for the first time ever, scrolled down to the comments. Hoooooooooooly poo poo
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Jul 13, 2016 03:07
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Thaddius the Large posted:Checked the latest strip and, for the first time ever, scrolled down to the comments. Hoooooooooooly poo poo Yeah uh... Comments on Erf forums fall into generally two categories. Wildly stupid speculation, or... that.
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Jul 13, 2016 03:11
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I left the official forums during the era of one strip a month because any discussion of the schedule was shouted down with ROBS WORKIN SO HARD HE NEEDS MORE CASH BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU GET the art has steadily gotten worse since book 1 and yet it's steadily taken longer to produce, funny that
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Jul 13, 2016 03:21
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:I left the official forums during the era of one strip a month because any discussion of the schedule was shouted down with ROBS WORKIN SO HARD HE NEEDS MORE CASH BE GRATEFUL FOR WHAT YOU GET I dunno I think the art during Book 2 was better than 1, but it's definitely gotten worse since then. First due to the new artist and then for whatever reason the art now isn't even as good at Book 2. Not that Book 1 looked bad, it looked really good.
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Jul 13, 2016 03:36
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The book 2 art was awesome, Xin is awesome IMO. I definitely preferred her doing the inking as well, but the new guy they've got teamed with her results in a way better comic than whatever the gently caress the forest book 3 artist was doing.
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Jul 13, 2016 04:17
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Book 1 had the best art by far but the current artist(s) are my second favorite. The weird hosed up perspectives and overuse of gradients the last artist had going on was not pleasant to look at and I almost stopped following the comic because the art was distractingly bad.
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Jul 13, 2016 08:04
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Reene posted:Book 1 had the best art by far but the current artist(s) are my second favorite. That's the current colorist, the Artist currently on book 3 is the same as book 2. Xin Ye. What was the reason for the first artist change, money?
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Jul 13, 2016 08:40
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Onmi posted:That's the current colorist, the Artist currently on book 3 is the same as book 2. Xin Ye. What was the reason for the first artist change, money? As best I remember Jamie went off to make his own webcomic that was pretty painfully dull even if very well drawn.
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Jul 13, 2016 13:15
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Yeah Jaime wanted to pursue other ventures, and Xin left initially due to family crises l.
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Jul 13, 2016 14:12
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Xin's very talented but her art style is much more generic than Jamie's. He had the "tiny, threatening doll people" aesthetic on lock.
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Jul 13, 2016 14:27
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Jamie Noguchi wanted to go do his own thing; Xin Ye had a lot of issues to deal with; David Hahn's style ultimately was disliked by most readers.
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Jul 13, 2016 16:30
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Cat Mattress posted:David Hahn's style ultimately was disliked by most readers. Can't imagine why.
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Jul 13, 2016 16:53
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Man, I forgot just how bad that colorwork is at the start of Book 3. I remembered it being a little unimpressive, but drat, I'm pretty sure loving Goblins literally has better colorwork than that.
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Jul 13, 2016 18:26
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Poison Mushroom posted:Man, I forgot just how bad that colorwork is at the start of Book 3. I remembered it being a little unimpressive, but drat, I'm pretty sure loving Goblins literally has better colorwork than that. Colorwork? Please, what about all the pathos and draftsmanship that was put into this pivotal moment?
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Jul 13, 2016 20:15
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NihilCredo posted:Colorwork? Please, what about all the pathos and draftsmanship that was put into this pivotal moment? Hey, it's just them being extremely calm about the situation that is currently proceeding. You should be applauding their strength of will in the face of adversity.
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Jul 13, 2016 20:29
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NihilCredo posted:Colorwork? Please, what about all the pathos and draftsmanship that was put into this pivotal moment?  Jillian's are pretty bad, though.
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Jul 13, 2016 23:30
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So this has me looking through back the rest of the book.page 61 posted:A very long time ago, when she had not truly known her own heart, or Don's, or Prince Ponzie's, she'd made a choice. Because of it, she had forever lost her connection to those who shared her craft. She had lost her voice. And her lover had lost his life. Now I'm 100% certain they hadn't actually thought out what had happened, since the choice ended up being "continue enduring constant emotional/physical/psychic abuse or let someone know about her experiments with Bill", and that's not "hauntingly similar" at all.
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Jul 14, 2016 11:38
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Agreed. Also, that paragraph all but outright states that Bunny's traumatic event happened at the same time and was closely linked to Ponzie's coup attempt. The actual event happened earlier, and Don was only tangentially involved. I think a casting of "Retconmancy" would be quite warranted here, especially since it's a text update.
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Jul 14, 2016 12:28
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Retconjuration is pretty hilarious, yeah. Point it out to Rob on twitter or something.
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Jul 14, 2016 16:48
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Either he does know, and hasn't cared enough to changed it, or the ErfWorld forums, for all their pedantry, have a terrible grasp of the big picture and nobody there noticed before Carrasco did. Neither would surprise me.
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Jul 14, 2016 21:25
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Poison Mushroom posted:Either he does know, and hasn't cared enough to changed it, or the ErfWorld forums, for all their pedantry, have a terrible grasp of the big picture and nobody there noticed before Carrasco did. No the Erfworld forums have been screaming that it was definitely about Bunny being involved in the coup (or being behind the coup, there are a lot of dumb ideas.)
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Jul 15, 2016 04:21
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New one is up What.
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Jul 15, 2016 19:25
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This gonna get gud.
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Jul 15, 2016 19:40
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Well, that was kinda left field.Onmi posted:That's the current colorist, the Artist currently on book 3 is the same as book 2. Xin Ye. What was the reason for the first artist change, money? I meant David Hahn. The current is pretty decent. The weird thing is if you look at David's other work it's not nearly as bad as what he produced for Erfworld.
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Jul 15, 2016 20:24
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This is a ploy. It has to be. Parson suspects that Don King suspects that Charlie is actively plotting against Transylvito, so telling him Charlie is a Titan would possibly shake the Don's belief in the Titanic mandate to rule and possibly make him more favorable to positive dealings with Gobwin Knob. This is going to come crashing down beautifully.
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Jul 15, 2016 20:34
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