Re: Been romping with my Undead until...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's normal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . That's why even with heap of bones and rotten meat, Ermor was widely regarded as a weak nation in MP. All the regular undeads are very vulnerable to banishing. Any player with some preparation can easily finish off a 100+ undeads army. The high-level undeads are wonderful but they need a good gem income to summon.

As the other mentioned, the undead priests of Ermor can cast protection spells to increase magic resistance. "Protection of the Sepulchre" and "Power of the Sepulchre" are both very good spells. A drain scale helps but it's not recommended since it'll slow your research to an incompetitive pace.

But, for most people, the answer is to give up on Ermor in Dom 1 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . Except for a few very good players, I don't aware of too many people claiming they know how to handle Ermor yet.

Re: Been romping with my Undead until...
 

Undead archers would probably be pretty decent against those nigh-unarmored Mictlan troops, and yes the longdead horsemen are nice too (and Pale Riders is definitely a bulk summons... along with Carrion Reanimation and the nice but hard-to-research Wight summons.)
Disease might also be a nasty weapon against Mictlan; think black servants with bane venom charms, harbingers, black death, etc. Mictlan *needs* blood magic, which effectively means they need to have a decent population in at least some provinces, plus they need to keep unrest down. Hitting their high-pop provinces with pop killers (which, incidentally, should also increase unrest) should help.

Re: Been romping with my Undead until...
 

The Drain scale is nulled by the fact that you have death and can make Skull Mentors. But that is only one option to give MR.

More often than not, the longer that Ermor survives with a good dominion the stronger it gets.

Ashen Empire is particularly nasty with 9 Death and 8 Bless Effects as Unholy Knights of the Seplechure are plentiful and can form a strong core of your armies against banishment.

Re: Been romping with my Undead until...
 

You can also deploy small squads forward with a single undead, perhaps one with good MR, away from your other undeads, to draw banishment attempts away from the others. Since banishment strikes like an inaccurate barrage, many castings can be wasted missing a single undead, which would have taken out dozens of zombies from a big group.

A necromancer or Revenant in the front raising skeletons can also do this well, but exposes the caster to danger.

Command units can hold anti-magic charms, etc.

Higher-level black priests can raise more and more powerful undead - see the manual's tables.
Wights and banes and those hounds with the bare skulls, and shades, are all somewhat tougher undead. The faster of those, and the Undead cavalry are great at the flank/rear attacks to go kill the priests, as Saxon mentioned.

PvK

Re: Been romping with my Undead until...
 

Thanks to all of you for your excellent tips! I think i rushed the Mictlan Capitol too early while using my high level troops to commit genocide http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif around the local provinces http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif There's so many GOOD ways to be BAD http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , i just LOVE this game. The higher dominion levels definitely give you more/better undead troops with Ashen or Soulgate BTW. Tonight i'll spread my troops out instead of letting the computer do it and tell my gem carrying priests to cast the appropriate spells...Bruhahahaha!!!! Thanks again everyone http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif .

Re: Been romping with my Undead until...
 

Hi,

I'm certainly no expert at D2 or Ermor, but I do so love to play them. One thing I didn't see mentioned by anyone else here was to take as high astral as you can with your pretender. Then, when you bless your sacreds, they get one added to their MR for every two levels of Astral, starting at 4. So, if you could take astral 10, you'd have +4 for all your sacred troops when they're blessed. (Plus Twist of Fate.)

Hope this helps,
V'ger gone

Re: Been romping with my Undead until...
 

I think the reason that isn't or was overlooked was because most Banishments can't affect your sacred troops very well (They usually have higher MR). The blessing only affects your sacreds.

And astral is always a great pick for Ermor for a variety of reasons.

Re: Been romping with my Undead until...
 

Well, after many hours i am kicking booty http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif . I set my dominion at 9 as it seems apparent that is all the Undead need as opposed to supplies. My quality of units showing up is MUCH improved, and i'm keeping my cavalry separate as suggested as well as having my priest/prophet stocked with death gems and only casting power of sepulchre. The carnage is unbelievable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif ...no survivors, only death! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif With the Undead it's like the song goes: "gotta keep 'em separated" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif .