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Aumanor posted:I'm not sure if it's the tower happening or the heir popping. I think the heir is still a long way in the future.
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Feb 4, 2018 16:54
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| # ? May 20, 2024 08:52 |
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Rand Brittain posted:I think the heir is still a long way in the future. Vanna was in there doing her thing for a while
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Feb 4, 2018 17:02
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Question on the artwork, did they change artists? That last panel looks wildly different.
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Feb 4, 2018 18:43
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Xin Ye is still doing the lines, but they changed colorists a while back. Also, Vanna was doing a thing to make the heir pop faster, but Charlie offered to make it happen next turn by linking up and getting the Arkendish involved. Don King thought that was impressive and possibly impossible, but either way, it means the heir isn't going to pop for a while after the next turn. Rand Brittain fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 19:31
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It's not impossible and it would make sense that the insta-heir was part of the reward for getting Parson. That said, the illustration definitely shows a Tower awakening. Those statues have clear moai traits.
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Feb 4, 2018 20:52
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Rand Brittain posted:Xin Ye is still doing the lines, but they changed colorists a while back. Okay thanks. Just wanted to check, because that last panel definitely didn't look Xin to me.
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Feb 4, 2018 21:01
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I like how Ben is not letting this go, like... for all the temptation Caeser is getting put with, Ben is just like "No, Charlie is going to kill us." Wonder what Transylvito's tower is going to be like.
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Feb 5, 2018 05:05
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Charlie gonna pay us a million schmuckers as penalty if he attacks us? Well, he just paid us nineteen, and we have another thirty something sitting on the table that he paid GK. Doesn't take a master class moneymancer to figure out that Charlie doesn't make deals he can't afford.
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Feb 5, 2018 05:16
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I really don't see why Charlie would attack Transylvito, or at least why he would have done so without Parson's alliance with them. Charlie prides himself on being a neutral side. He's only ever broken his neutrality to attempt, specifically, to kill Parson. Maybe he'd try to leverage TV into a bad position to get his money back, but just straight out attacking them? Very much not his style. Plus, he bears them no personal ill will at all. He just wants to get rid of Parson. And he only wants to get rid of Parson because Parson is doggedly determined to get rid of him.
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Feb 5, 2018 09:25
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Basically Caesar saw that Charlie had guns and thought, "oh no, he could conquer us easily, so of course he will conquer us, because that's what sides do in Erfworld". But that isn't why Charlie has guns. He very specifically has no interest in conquest. He just wants to sit in his tower in perfect security, immune to attack, running the world's wars and finances under the table.
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Feb 5, 2018 09:27
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I don't think it's about "will conquer us" it's about "there is literally nothing we could do to keep charlie from conquering us if he ever decided to." I don't think it falls within a Chief Warlord OR a ruler's Duty to trust in "we exist because charlie does not want us to not exist at this point in time."
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Feb 5, 2018 09:50
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19 million schmuckers is a pretty good reason to attack. There's also tying up loose ends angle - he doesn't want word of his guns getting out, or he could have used them in his mercenary role and/or further deter aggression against him. We know Charlie doesn't want to embark on conquest right now, partly because it helps maintain his low profile and partly because it's frankly more proportionally expensive to run a bigger side - but it is speculated that he's planning a massive 'conquer the world in a single turn' campaign that would let him neatly sidestep the incredible cost of trying to defend such huge borders by virtue of not having anyone left to defend against.
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Feb 5, 2018 09:56
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There are guns all over the Magic Kingdom now, and Gobwin Knob is mass producing their own inferior versions, so I'm pretty sure that cat is out of the bag. I dunno, I just don't see it. It seems like a ploy Parson invented to get Transylvito to ally with him, when in fact knowing what we know of Charlie's character it's very unlikely he would ever attack a sovereign side unless he was being hired to do so by someone else. He prizes his security and his status as a neutral operator very highly, and he wants to win the war of public opinion. Doublecrossing a royal side and violating his own deal with them in order to engage in military conquest would be the ultimate in bad PR for Charlescomm. If I were him, I'd just have stuck a proviso in the deal to the effects of, "if this doesn't actually remove Parson Gotti from Erfworld, the deal is moot". If it does remove Parson, it's worth it for Charlie. If not, he gets his money back.
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Feb 5, 2018 10:03
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Android Blues posted:I really don't see why Charlie would attack Transylvito, or at least why he would have done so without Parson's alliance with them. Charlie prides himself on being a neutral side. He's only ever broken his neutrality to attempt, specifically, to kill Parson. Maybe he'd try to leverage TV into a bad position to get his money back, but just straight out attacking them? Very much not his style. TV is now a hundred times richer then the average side and have guns, which can be reversed engineered how ever imperfectly. This makes them a potential runaway threat that if I remember this bloated meandering series right, isn't all that far away from Charlies one city. Like, yeah even that might not make them a threat per say but it very easily let them turn into one, and securing the absolute poo poo out of his entirely too shaken position is what Charlie is all about.
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Feb 5, 2018 10:04
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The guns are pretty useless without a Master Carnymancer to gimmick them with auto-skill. On their own, they're just extremely difficult to use ranged weapons with like a 95%+ miss rate. They're very lethal if they hit, but they never hit unless the person using them is already really good at ranged combat. It's the fact that Charlie made his guns auto-skill anyone holding them as a high level archer that made them really scary. TV has one rifle that Charlie offered to let them keep as part of his deal to remove Parson. He wouldn't have done that if he was super scared of being attacked with rifles. Remember, Charlescomm's armoury doesn't stop at rifles. He has crazy stuff like rocket-propelled grenades on hand.
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Feb 5, 2018 10:09
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I think what's more urgent for Charlie is that he wants to convince Transylvito he's their natural ally, not Gobwin Knob. Right now GK can only threaten him because of Parson's strategic genius thinking of unorthodox ways to strike at him directly. If they form a coalition of sides against Charlescomm, though, that might present an actual military threat. More importantly, if Charlie was embroiled in a war against multiple sides, he could lose his reputation as a reliable neutral actor along with a chunk of his potential client base. He wants GK to be isolated renegades trying to sabotage a pillar of the community. That way, he can control the story and spin them as a side who were always evil being ginned up to further evil by the wicked Lord Hamster. If previously upstanding sides like Transylvito start turning against him, that's a harder story for him to sway public opinion with.
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Feb 5, 2018 10:28
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Android Blues posted:There are guns all over the Magic Kingdom now, and Gobwin Knob is mass producing their own inferior versions, so I'm pretty sure that cat is out of the bag. Charlie had basically spent a lifetime playing politics in the MK, and the MK tries very hard to separate themselves from the overworld. He could wheel and deal his way into their silence, particularly when his biggest rival faction just got flattened and the barbarian casters are desperate for stability. Charlie could even claim Parson was the one who brought the guns and whose gonna argue that? Android Blues posted:I dunno, I just don't see it. It seems like a ploy Parson invented to get Transylvito to ally with him, when in fact knowing what we know of Charlie's character it's very unlikely he would ever attack a sovereign side unless he was being hired to do so by someone else. He prizes his security and his status as a neutral operator very highly, and he wants to win the war of public opinion. Doublecrossing a royal side and violating his own deal with them in order to engage in military conquest would be the ultimate in bad PR for Charlescomm. Well, to some extent it was a ploy. Parson wanted to cut a deal from the start, Caesar makes some assumptions and Parson didn't deny them. Some of those assumptions even turn out to be right (the storytelling of Faq funding by CC was guessed but never confirmed). Charlie takes great effort to maintain his reputation which is exactly why he's forced into doing something. 19 million is an unheard of wealth for most sides, it's going to severely imbalance local power. If word gets out that will beg the question of how much more CC has and encourage endless attacks by other neighbors who think it can't be that hard to conquer a single city. We may not have heard of any other sides that were directly backstabbed, but Charlie is too much of a professional to leave anyone able to do so. Nondisclosure agreements are standard, dead sides tell no tales. For all his image of fairness he still has his reputation of having the advantage in every deal and you're advised to not make one if at all possible. Android Blues posted:If I were him, I'd just have stuck a proviso in the deal to the effects of, "if this doesn't actually remove Parson Gotti from Erfworld, the deal is moot". If it does remove Parson, it's worth it for Charlie. If not, he gets his money back. Charlie wouldn't write that kind of language into the contract because that puts way too many details in the open. It also betrays a lack of confidence in his plan or implies a loophole - does Don gamble on a seemingly impossible sum or take the easy 2m from Stanley? I mean, what if the scroll wasn't what Charlie said at all? Android Blues posted:I think what's more urgent for Charlie is that he wants to convince Transylvito he's their natural ally, not Gobwin Knob. Right now GK can only threaten him because of Parson's strategic genius thinking of unorthodox ways to strike at him directly. If they form a coalition of sides against Charlescomm, though, that might present an actual military threat. More importantly, if Charlie was embroiled in a war against multiple sides, he could lose his reputation as a reliable neutral actor along with a chunk of his potential client base. This is also why Charlie would want to hit TV right now. That's a lot of money Parson could put to use, taking out TV eliminates one of the few alliances GK has finally managed to make, and who's going to believe the social pariah GK over renowned mercenary side? Obviously, as Charlie will tell you, GK used the alliance as a pretext to move troops up to sucker punch and raze for schmuckers.
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Feb 5, 2018 10:41
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Charlie is also perfectly capable of getting around the no-attack clause, as we've seen with him using Jillian as an attack dog, so it almost feels like him promising not to attack you is itself a sign that you're about to be murdered.
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Feb 5, 2018 15:08
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Android Blues posted:I really don't see why Charlie would attack Transylvito, or at least why he would have done so without Parson's alliance with them. Charlie prides himself on being a neutral side. He's only ever broken his neutrality to attempt, specifically, to kill Parson. Maybe he'd try to leverage TV into a bad position to get his money back, but just straight out attacking them? Very much not his style. He doesn't personally attack sides, but he's not above engineering the fall of a side for the sake of his own profit (or to keep his secrets, or to fulfill some predictamancy), especially if he can plausibly claim he's been hired by someone to do it. Now, does Charlie have any close ties with a side that is in direct need of money and cities right now, and would probably be happy to offer Charlescomm a contract specifying that he gets a big cut of any money he helps her obtain? Perhaps a side that he's been supporting in the past, one which has been directly put into its current predicament by a dastardly Transylvitan betrayal? A side that he might have recently used for the express purpose of getting around a "Charlescomm can't attack this side" contract? Though more than anything, what seems to be driving the distrust from Caesar's end is just how much money the notoriously stingy Charlie is putting on the table. When Vinny conquered Faq, Transylvito's entire treasury was only 126k schmuckers. Even taking Faq's treasury only boosted that up to 217k. In other words, the amount Charlie paid TV to get rid of Parson is over a hundred times what TV had in their treasury at the time they made the deal. And this is from Charlie, a notorious penny-pincher who's only known goal is making as much money as possible and spending as little as possible. Caesar seems to not be that trusting to begin with, and the more money Charlie uncharacteristically offers up, the more convinced he is that Charlie won't let them live to spend it. As the story of Digdoug makes clear, "neutral" is not the same as "trustworthy".
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Feb 5, 2018 17:12
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Yeah, at this point Transylvito knows that: A) Charlie would probably prefer them to be dead. B) Charlie probably has the resources to make this happen, given that they can give away more money than anybody has ever had without missing it much. C) Charlie is such an accomplished and dedicated weasel that him giving you his word that he won't do something is almost a guarantee that he's going to do it.
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Feb 5, 2018 17:21
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Android Blues posted:I really don't see why Charlie would attack Transylvito, or at least why he would have done so without Parson's alliance with them. Charlie prides himself on being a neutral side. He's only ever broken his neutrality to attempt, specifically, to kill Parson. Maybe he'd try to leverage TV into a bad position to get his money back, but just straight out attacking them? Very much not his style. Back here, Charlie makes it clear that he's absolutely willing to destroy a side to get back money he gave them. He might do some trickery to get it done while preserving his reputation, but he'd certainly get it done. Ceaser obviously isn't privy to that conversation, but he and Ben seem to have a decent read on the guy. And I feel like Parson wouldn't be so determined to kill Charlie if Charlie hadn't made it clear he was set on getting rid of Parson. Would Parson have bought into that at all, if Slately hadn't dropped Charlescomm's name, or if Charlie didn't call Parson to get him to use the scroll? They certainly weren't friends before the battle for Spacerock, but they were on much better terms than they are now.
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Feb 6, 2018 06:29
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aegof posted:Back here, Charlie makes it clear that he's absolutely willing to destroy a side to get back money he gave them. He might do some trickery to get it done while preserving his reputation, but he'd certainly get it done. Ceaser obviously isn't privy to that conversation, but he and Ben seem to have a decent read on the guy. I think these are good points, but I do think the situation in that update is different. Charlie there is talking about 140 million getting awarded to Stanley as a knock-on result of GK trying a covert assassination attempt on him under truce, so you can see why he'd be peeved and considering direct action to reclaim it. 19 million to Transylvito as payment for services rendered seems like the kind of thing he'd be less likely to violently reclaim. One is an intentional deal with a foreseen end result, and the other is Charlie's plans going haywire and his worst enemies getting their mitts on a huge chunk of his treasury when he didn't intend them to.
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Feb 6, 2018 10:22
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Charlie can only function as an enigma, or at least that's the image he has been projecting since forever. TV think they know too much truth about Charlie and they could be right. If not before harboring Parson, they definitely do now.
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Feb 6, 2018 11:13
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regardless of what Charlie does or intends, FAQ has guns, is known to be a Charlie puppet, and is really, really loving mad at TV now, so watch that space
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Feb 6, 2018 16:42
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:regardless of what Charlie does or intends, FAQ has guns, is known to be a Charlie puppet, and is really, really loving mad at TV now, so watch that space What really makes me leery about the whole situation is that Faq was genuinely buddies with Transylvito and their now-enmity is purely a result of Parson lying to Don King until Transylvito was conned into pulling off the backstab. Like, GK has not been a good partner for TV in this alliance so far, they've mostly just brought them misfortune and ruin. Time will tell if that will change.
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Feb 6, 2018 17:09
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Android Blues posted:What really makes me leery about the whole situation is that Faq was genuinely buddies with Transylvito and their now-enmity is purely a result of Parson lying to Don King until Transylvito was conned into pulling off the backstab. Like, GK has not been a good partner for TV in this alliance so far, they've mostly just brought them misfortune and ruin. Time will tell if that will change. On the other hand, Faq was lying to TV first. TV was basically bankrupting itself funding Faq and losing a bunch of border cities while Jillian whistles nonchalantly and collects CC support under the table.
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Feb 7, 2018 00:01
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Parson wasn't completely honest with Transylvito, but I'm pretty sure they sincerely believed a fair amount of the picture they were presenting—they were just wrong.
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Feb 7, 2018 02:29
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Holy poo poo Bill. You jerk.
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Feb 7, 2018 04:06
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Well! That's certainly a something.
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Feb 7, 2018 04:18
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Now I just have to wonder how much of Bill's sniveling was an act, and how much is him currently being filled with false confidence.
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Feb 7, 2018 04:41
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Huh, TV got a mesoamerican tower. Tlatoani means ruler, naturally.
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Feb 7, 2018 06:29
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So the amulet was tampered with while Bill examined it - is it meant to kill, or just incapacitate/silence? Rulers can issue orders nonverbally, but it might be necessary for more complex interactions like merging into GK as an emergency measure.
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Feb 7, 2018 06:38
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At any point, expecting Charlie to not be a murderous son of a bitch is a mistake on the part of the reader. Charlie is a liar, he is a murderer, and there is no such things as "Bygones be bygones." There is only Winning.
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Feb 7, 2018 08:18
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Man I like Ceaser, I'mma be pissed if he goes down to this. I wonder if he can disband people while suffering from asphyxiation.
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Feb 7, 2018 08:55
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Caidin posted:Man I like Ceaser, I'mma be pissed if he goes down to this. I wonder if he can disband people while suffering from asphyxiation. Can't exactly disband someone on another side, though.
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Feb 7, 2018 09:04
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isndl posted:Can't exactly disband someone on another side, though. Boo I didn't catch that on the first read, Is Vanna back in or is this just more carnie noise?
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Feb 7, 2018 09:06
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Caidin posted:Boo I didn't catch that on the first read, Is Vanna back in or is this just more carnie noise? It looks like Bill voluntarily turned to Charlescomm and took all his dolls with him. This is bad news, since dolls make up a large chunk of Transylvito's army and are stationed all over the capital. Caesar is the only non-doll unit in near proximity who's even capable of fighting at a respectable level, and he's currently being strangled.
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Feb 7, 2018 09:46
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Also, the side has no heir, so if Caesar dies, Transylvito will go barbarian and then most probably cease to be.
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Feb 7, 2018 09:48
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Caesar's got bats in the hallway, the problem is getting them stacked for leadership. Do they have a Chief Warlord after Caesar got promoted? The dolls don't have any leadership, but they would have the bonus from Bill. This is the exact kind of hypothetical situation Parson loves to wargame and he just got zapped out of the picture. Maybe Jack can pick up the slack though.
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Feb 7, 2018 10:05
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If Maggie and Jack are still stacked with Caesar, then Maggie might just kill Bill with her bare hands.
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Feb 7, 2018 10:10
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