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XkyRauh posted:It's Benjamin confronting a list of demands from Charlie. Ben tries to pick up vocabulary from HueHue. I probably missed something major, but I feel like nothing really happened, here. Secondary character we're supposed to care about #528 has been listed as a BIG DEAL by an author infodump, as though the last few updates dedicated to her didn't hammer the point home enough.
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Jul 22, 2018 11:44
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Weird realisation; the way units 'pop' in Erfworld seems familiar, then I realise it's basically the same way Gems in Steven Universe are born; created fully as adults with a particular role and 'programming' for it, aware from their first moment of existence and fully capable of thinking and reasoning, but lacking memories and experiences. And sometimes with particular quirks that become obvious immediately or over time. Also, that slutty Charlescomm outfit is gratuitous yet hilarious. I think Skyy Appletini's thing is meant to be that she's basically the only person in Transylvito who's competent, sensible and in their physical prime. Ghost Leviathan fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Aug 3, 2018 |
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Aug 2, 2018 08:25
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So, today we get some really good news on the cancer front, yet another crazy thing the Arkendish can do, and some casters using some of those sweet, sweet Actual Tactics you've all been craving.
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Aug 8, 2018 23:22
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Interesting implication that Charlie's been studying and implementing ideas from Earth long before Parson came around.
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Aug 9, 2018 08:52
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So Charlie has been mining Earth military tactics and theory. Okay, cool. What does that actually mean in Erf where all combat is mechanically expressed? In Earth terms it's a leadership tool, to maximize resource efficiency, while in Erf leadership is a stat that multiplies the stats of units under your command without special orders (see Transylvito bat stacks). Is tactical training a leadership stat boost, in which case shouldn't it already be applied to the stack? Does the leadership stat fluctuate according to issued orders? Are orders a form of natural luckamancy and training the way to teach new 'spells'? The big reveal that Charlie is using German training manuals (WW1 era?) kinda falls flat in that it's highly dissociated from everything else that's happening, especially when the current situation is "we need to fall back (to prepared positions that we haven't made)". If the whole purpose of this reveal is to set up some later gambit where Parson says "defilades are good but we can beat it with fire and maneuver" I'm going to be pretty disappointed.
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Aug 9, 2018 10:50
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I imagine while Charlie's been researching Earth technology (presumably) to make guns and explosives, he took some time to look up the tactics on how to properly use them too. Likely he has the problems Parson has from the opposite end in translating what would be very abstract ideas in slightly alien language to the way things work in his home universe. Without them, Erfworld units with guns, even auto-specialed ones, aren't likely to be much more tactically effective than a Third World militia. (of course, much like a third world militia, it doesn't matter if your firepower is overwhelming enough)
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Aug 9, 2018 12:29
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This isn't exactly new, he did mention before he had extrauniverse channels which clearly referred to the ones tapping into Earth knowledge.
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Aug 9, 2018 22:23
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Kyte posted:This isn't exactly new, he did mention before he had extrauniverse channels which clearly referred to the ones tapping into Earth knowledge. True, I just kind of assumed that he was literally watching TV — actually pulling up old books means he has access to a lot of information. If he can do that, who says he can't read the top-secret build-a-nuke documents?
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Aug 9, 2018 22:44
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Rand Brittain posted:True, I just kind of assumed that he was literally watching TV — actually pulling up old books means he has access to a lot of information. If he can do that, who says he can't read the top-secret build-a-nuke documents? Building a nuke would be totally useless, though, because physics work differently. ...also building a nuke requires far more than the main documents, it requires a huge industrial production line that includes technologies and materials totally alien to Erf. I'm pretty sure a nuke would be built by elaborate signamancy, or finding a rules exploit. Anyways, the main issue here for me is that this is one of my fantasy pet peeves: Our universe is 'more real' than Erf. Our gun strats are the correct and powerful way to roll out with guns, despite the fact that combat in Erf functions in fundamentally different ways from our world. As noted above, there's a disconnect: Combat is supposed to work like a wargame, but in reality, it just works like actual combat in little hex arenas. It's lost a certain flavor.
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Aug 9, 2018 23:11
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Tri-link a dirtamancer and a shockamancer and you'll get a nuke.
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Aug 10, 2018 00:10
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Rand Brittain posted:So, today we get some really good news on the cancer front Oof. Great news really, but it sounds like she was misdiagnosed and they're talking about a lawsuit.
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Aug 10, 2018 00:27
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Joe Slowboat posted:Building a nuke would be totally useless, though, because physics work differently. It's always been like that though. Within a single hex things have always more or less mirrored IRL. Moreover, the manual just detailed an extremely basic formation. There's no reason why that wouldn't work in Erfworld.
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Aug 10, 2018 05:54
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My point is just that when the comic has focused in on individual hex combat, rather than the hex-level strategy that this game-universe is supposedly about, it hasn't had the same impact. The combat scenes can be tense but they're never as fun as when combat was basically a few visual gags, the equivalent of a Fire Emblem battle animation, because that let the authors glide over many fights quickly. The more individual actions in a hex have mattered, the slower the comic has gone, IMO.
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Aug 10, 2018 06:05
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I think more contract chicanery is going to happen now. Benji saw the loaner comment and "payback". Maybe contract automagically yoinking the gems back to parson out of Charlie's hands? Or forcing them to turn to GK and causing penalties? Heck I need to look at the contract for gk and transylvito. Edit: Actually thinking on it more, Ben orders all commanders to GK, Charlie gets unled units which automatically attack the commanders. If they're unled bats then Charlie racks up a massive bill to GK until he disbands those forces. Donkringel fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Aug 22, 2018 |
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Aug 22, 2018 18:35
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There was a page a little while back that showed the full text of the GK-TV alliance treaty, which includes a number of cases in which gems are automatically converted to Schmuckers and sent to GK instantly upon the contract condition being triggered, without any need for Moneymancers or hats or physically moving gems. So that's probably what's going on. Page 324.
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Aug 23, 2018 01:27
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Yeah, that contract didn't specify that the gems had to be in possession of TV for the automatic conversion to trigger. I have a feeling they might cause an intentional treaty breach in order to get Parson his money back.
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Aug 23, 2018 08:50
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So basically this is the two remaining sensible people in TV (plus a talking tower) working out a plan to stop the side from completely collapsing.
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Aug 25, 2018 03:47
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Jillian continues to be the most boring plotline.
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Aug 29, 2018 07:48
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New update. https://archives.erfworld.com/Book%203/337 So the plan would dump TV's money to GK before Charlie gets it, but I can't see how it protects the people. Something about GK loaning money to TV for upkeep preventing them from turning?
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Sep 1, 2018 21:56
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TV can't pay any other debts or penalties until they've paid off GK in full, but also is allowed to pay off GK entirely at their own discretion. Units can also be used to pay outstanding debts, and Charlescom isn't actually demanding those units, he's demanding those units be ordered to turn. If they've already been sent to GK due to outstanding debts, well then they have no real reason to obey those orders now do they.
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Sep 1, 2018 23:40
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By itself, the point seems to be to insulate whatever Transylvito does next (we don't know what that is) from Charlie, likely in a way related to Charlie's earlier ultimatum. Exactly how that's going to happen is unclear because there's still a lot left unsaid about how contracts work, and what happens when something's left unspecified. For example, the thing where Gobwin Knob couldn't afford a contract payment and had to pay in units instead was specifically laid out as a condition in the GK-CC contract. The conditions Shirley offered didn't include anything equivalent to that, and in fact Benjamin seems to be aiming to exploit omissions like that. What happens if a contract doesn't include a "what happens if you can't pay" condition? I don't know, but I expect we're going to find out. The star feature of the contract in the newest page is almost certainly the precedence clause. Basically, if Translyvito incurs any debts to anyone else, they'll have to pay out to Gobwin Knob first. In other words, they won't be able to pay Charlie anything until they've fully paid back Gobwin Knob, since any time they trigger a contract payment or penalty with Charlie, this contract will automatically send their entire treasury to Gobwin Knob first. And since Shirley's agreement doesn't have a punitive clause for TV being unable to pay, TV presumably suffers no ill effects or punishments at all. The whole thing is kept secret from Huehue and the other towers since his "can't lie on a contract" problem means he'd presumably be unable to agree to a condition he knew his side was going to weasel out of. How does this get GK's gems back? Well, it doesn't, at least not directly. But Bill sending his dolls to attack TV's warlords broke the one-way ceasefire CC had with TV, resulting in Charlie paying 20 million Schmuckers to Transylvito, so sending that to Gobwin Knob will mostly make up for the loss of the gems. On top of that, we don't know what it takes to convert gems into Schmuckers. We know a ruler can do it because we saw Slately do it, but what about other unit types? It's possible that the dolls might have to carry the gems through the Magic Kingdom to Charlescomm's portal. And it just so happens that Parson has an attack force ready to invade that very same Magic Kingdom. Even without the gems trick that was meant to keep their ceasefire-breach liability at a minimum, there's a good chance Parson's attack force will come out ahead if it runs into a few unled dolls and croaks them. With 20 million Schmuckers, GK can breach the ceasefire eight or nine times before they run out of money, and we saw six dolls taking the gems. Given that Parson's attack force is a bunch of trained knights with a Chief Warlord and a Ruler Warlord with Arkentool bonus, I wouldn't be surprised if GK could take the gems by force and still have a couple million left.
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Sep 2, 2018 00:04
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Main Paineframe posted:The star feature of the contract in the newest page is almost certainly the precedence clause. Precedence between contracts really feels like something that should be governed by a fundamental rule of Signamancy. It seems super OP that you can freely take a contract with a friendly third party that intentionally supercedes (and effectively nullifies) the contract you're about to sign with a hostile third party, with the latter being none the wiser. The comic has been saying that Shirley's sloppiness is what will enable TV to cheat, but we've seen Charlie's contracts before and I don't think any of them had a clause preventing this particular kind of trickery - and besides, I'm not sure it would be possible, as anything you write could be explicitly superceded by an ad-hoc contract between friends.
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Sep 2, 2018 00:47
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I mean, you can do real contracts that work that way. You can mortgage property twice, and the first mortgage takes precedence over the second. It isn't really that different from Parson's plan to give all the money away before Charlie could get it.
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Sep 2, 2018 00:53
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Rand Brittain posted:I mean, you can do real contracts that work that way. You can mortgage property twice, and the first mortgage takes precedence over the second. With the critical difference that the entity that grants you the second mortgage is aware of the first one, and of the pre-existing obligations it carries. It knows the risk, and can refuse or set a higher interest, etc.
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Sep 2, 2018 01:24
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NihilCredo posted:With the critical difference that the entity that grants you the second mortgage is aware of the first one, and of the pre-existing obligations it carries. It knows the risk, and can refuse or set a higher interest, etc. Ohohoho, said the lawyer.
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Sep 2, 2018 01:41
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Parson's gimmick worked because the way payment worked in their particular contract was based on a percentage - half their treasury per infraction with a minimum of 500k and a maximum of 5 million, so having a smaller treasury would mean smaller payments. Hence moving everything out of their treasury and into gems - instead of having 25 million Schmuckers and having to pay 5 million per infraction, they could keep their treasury number at 500k and only have to pay 500k per infraction. By keeping their balance as low as possible and just depositing enough money to replenish what they use, they could keep the penalty numbers low and stretch their 25 million into a LOT more violations than the percentage-based penalty would normally allow for. By manipulating the number the percentage was being taken from, they were able to reduce the resulting payment number. In Transylvito's case, that wouldn't work, because there's no percentages involved. Shirley is asking for a single-payment lump-sum right now (20 million, plus the 200k or so TV took from Faq), and although we haven't actually seen the CC-TV ceasefire agreement, it appears to be another fixed amount. Since none of these are based on percentage-of-treasury, it doesn't really matter if TV fucks around with their treasury or not. Either they have the amount that's demanded and they pay it, or they don't have the amount and they're in default. In that case, sure, TV would get the money to GK, but then they'd be failing to meet a contract condition and would trigger whatever punitive clause was attached (which, under a normal Charlie contract, would screw them just as bad or worse). So what's going on here? Well, as given, there actually isn't a penalty for failing to meet the contract conditions. Normally, Charlie's contracts specifically mention what happens if you can't afford to pay what you agreed to, but Shirley's contract doesn't. There's no punitive clause, no penalty, no "if unable to do X, do Y instead". Obviously, you can't simply refuse to pay a contract because of the automatic enforcement, but if Transylvito just so happens to lose all their money the instant before the payment would be triggered, they don't seem to face any particular consequences. That's why Benjamin was so surprised to see the demands - normally, Charlie would make sure to have failure clauses or violation clauses for everything. This rather obvious exploit is only possible because the Temples are under the belief that they don't need ironclad language because they straight-up can't lie to each other - if Huehue knew about this scheme, his knowledge would render him literally unable to Sign to a condition his side had no intention of obeying. Since the Temples can't cheat, they don't see any use for wasting their time with language that serves to prevent cheating. Of course, the natural implication of all this is that there is no default punishment for failing to meet a contract condition in a way that evades the automatic enforcement, and that every possible violation has to be specifically accounted for in the contract language - if someone manages to violate it in a way that doesn't trigger a penalty clause, they get off with zero punishment. No wonder everyone hates Charlie.
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Sep 2, 2018 02:57
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Main Paineframe posted:Parson's gimmick worked because the way payment worked in their particular contract was based on a percentage - half their treasury per infraction with a minimum of 500k and a maximum of 5 million, so having a smaller treasury would mean smaller payments. Hence moving everything out of their treasury and into gems - instead of having 25 million Schmuckers and having to pay 5 million per infraction, they could keep their treasury number at 500k and only have to pay 500k per infraction. By keeping their balance as low as possible and just depositing enough money to replenish what they use, they could keep the penalty numbers low and stretch their 25 million into a LOT more violations than the percentage-based penalty would normally allow for. By manipulating the number the percentage was being taken from, they were able to reduce the resulting payment number. Is that similar to the case that units have been ordered to "Turn" to Charlescomm, but said units could refuse that order and there's no penalty for doing so?
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Sep 2, 2018 04:36
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NihilCredo posted:Precedence between contracts really feels like something that should be governed by a fundamental rule of Signamancy. It seems super OP that you can freely take a contract with a friendly third party that intentionally supercedes (and effectively nullifies) the contract you're about to sign with a hostile third party, with the latter being none the wiser. It's because 'tv' isn't signing the contract with Shirley, Huehue is. Contracts basically enforce honesty in order to enter them, but apparently that doesn't protect from IGNORANCE, if Huehue doesn't KNOW tv is going to cheat on the contract he's signing, then he can sign the contract despite tv being about to cheat it.
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Sep 2, 2018 06:31
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I'm sure the underlying underpinnings of Erfworld magical contract enforcement are built keeping in mind it will be used for all kinds of loophole bullshittery and gleefully encourage it.
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Sep 2, 2018 19:28
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I'm sure the underlying underpinnings of Erfworld magical contract enforcement are built keeping in mind it will be used for all kinds of loophole bullshittery and gleefully encourage it. Erfworld was based on a game system built entirely around the Kobayashi Maru scenario after all.
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Sep 2, 2018 20:48
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It is becoming increasingly clear why Charlie's worst enemies thought that inflicting Shirley on him was sufficient revenge for killing them.
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Sep 5, 2018 07:31
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Shirley's a tutorial guide, Charlie's a high level gimmick munchkin. Also possibly going to die from withdrawal.
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Sep 5, 2018 10:53
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Hmm.... You know for all the trickery and fuckery that was discussed about how to weasel out of the deal, I don't think I saw anyone consider the fact that Charlie just doesn't remove the gently caress you collar until the deal is done.
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Sep 8, 2018 07:48
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I know "another twist" is more interesting than "not another twist", but at a certain point you're just twisting in circles and not actually moving anywhere.
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Sep 8, 2018 10:12
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Donkringel posted:Hmm.... Not if the contract includes a clause to auto-magically remove Caesar's gently caress you collar once Transilvito "upholds" their end of the terms. Charlie's stick is being the fraud that never technically defrauded you because it all was to the "letter" of the agreement; now someone else is bargaining in Charlie's stead and that someone thinks you can make the spirit of the agreement count more than the letter. There's Charlescomm blood in the water, at least until Charlie finds a way to kill Shirley.
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Sep 8, 2018 11:41
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What's going on with vinny right now? It's been a long time since we checked up with him. Was the bat takeover of faq last turn or this turn?
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Sep 8, 2018 20:47
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ninjewtsu posted:What's going on with vinny right now? It's been a long time since we checked up with him. Was the bat takeover of faq last turn or this turn? I'm pretty sure it's still the same turn. That's why Maggie and Jack have just been standing around and watching - they started the turn as juiceless prisoners, and won't get their juice refilled until they start a turn as free units. We're still on turn 1 of the TV-GK alliance.
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Sep 9, 2018 00:51
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Is there ever going to be another turn I wonder
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Sep 9, 2018 02:08
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I want this plotline to be over with and for the comic to go back to Parson pulling crazy tricks out of his rear end. Comic started off as: "dude gets sucked into his favorite game and exploits everything" But now it turns out that Parson's exploits were actually an inspiration for literally everyone else to start cheating too.
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Sep 9, 2018 06:38
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nimby posted:I want this plotline to be over with and for the comic to go back to Parson pulling crazy tricks out of his rear end. The ones that hadn't already been cheating long before Parson showed up, anyway.
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Sep 9, 2018 07:12
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