Re: Ermor balance?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, I remember one AE game where I had my first encounter with Orion and the Eternal Knights when Arco threw them at me. They just sort of strolled through my armies each turn until their contract ran out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: Ermor balance?
 

Well ...
Really I believe Ermor Death Themes are very strong.

Death to supply his research has the Skull Mentors, only Const-4, and they cost 10 gems.
Ermor can take 4 scales at -3, allowing it to design a super pretender. And it can take Luck-3 and Magic-3 too.

Soul Gate is far better, since your troops could flee, yes, but they're ethereal.
Even if you've good magic against Ermor, you should commit mages to battle, risking to losing them, to fight infinite hordes of undeads ... while Ermor can freely keep up his research at full speed.

Re: Ermor balance?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A pretender, no matter how super, is still only capable of performing one action at a time.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, but taking Luck is a natural thing to do when taking Turmoil, and everyone takes magic-3....right? Given that the alternative to Turmoil/Luck is Order/Misfortune, and both of these options are of equivalent cost, the only real free points you're getting is a heat scale, sloth scale, and death scale. This is the exact same thing you can do with your precious Abysia. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Soul Gate Ermor lacks cavalry. There are no spectral cavalries that are the counterparts of AE's Longdead Horsemans.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Without any mage support, Ermor's armies are pure chaff. It takes one mage to nuke 'em till they glow. Soul Gate Ermor, while ethereal, has ubiquitous 0 protection and is completely defenseless against magic-based attack, while having no longdead horsemans to rush mages. Thus, they lumber around at infantry-speed, and can be annihilated en-masse. Killing spree!

Re: Ermor balance?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not everyone http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Ermor with Magic-3 pays 12 gems to get a Spectator who does 7 research. Ermor with drain-3 gets 1 research out of the same guy, until experience increases. That's pretty horrible. But when you equip your Spectator with an Owl Quill and a Skull Mentor, you're paying 27 gems to get 13 research in drain-3 (16 with lanterns instead of quills). In magic-3 you get 19 (22 w/lantern) research out of that same guy. So your research, in the long run, is about 2/3 as good in drain-3 as in magic-3, and this discounts experience bonuses which make the gap smaller. Of course, you'd have to get to Construction 4 first, and this is a lot of time your pretender spends parked in the library when he ought to be out killing people.

I'm not seriously suggesting taking drain-3. Just pointing out that because of Ermor's tendency (or at least ability) to use Skull Mentors, you're not hurting so much in Drain (or at least from less magic scale) as other nations.

Wth a living nation you more or less have to take luck if you are taking turmoil. With Ermor you can still afford misfortune, if you need more points, or at the least, luck-2 instead of luck-3. The only bad event that really hurts for Ermor is having a lab or temple kerplode. Everything else kills half of your 0 population. IMO, the primary problem with misfortune is that you DON'T get gem or gold positive events.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except Longdead Horsemen, of course. You don't get them free, but you can summon them for 0.5 gems (or less) per horse. And then there's the Behemoth...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The Ashen Ermor troops don't hold up all that well against magic based attack either. The only advantage they have is that there are (slightly) more of them, so it takes more castings to kill them all.

In the past I held that Soul Gate was weaker than Ashen Ermor, because it has such worse autosummons. And while the autosummons are worse, largely because you don't get free, sometimes sacred, cavalry, they aren't THAT MUCH worse. Blade Wind/Holy Pyre/Banishment/etc kills longdeads about as efficiently as spirits. But SG troops can defend castles, and have better MR. The free commanders, which have priest powers, are much better. And the national summons, while more expensive, are ethereal and have better stats. All in all I think it is about a wash.

Re: Ermor balance?
 

I think AE is better than SG, and that's mainly for their priests.
SG priest can reanimate:
Dispossesed Spirits (havent tried those, sound pretty sucky)
Shadows (Weak! and only two a turn, even at high dominion)
Apparitions (Which require unburied corpses, so you can't mass 'em).

AE priests can reanimate Longdead Horsemen which are very powerful, at a rate of ~6 a day at a positive dominion, if you prophetize one you can even revive Wights (which are actually Lictors), which are very tough and come 2 a day.

And since for the same level of priest you need to pay more with SG and since AE has "Protection of The Sepulchre", I think AE is stronger.

Re: Ermor balance?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dispossessed Spirits are the same as the Spirit Mastery spell, and the autosummon you get in provinces with neither temples nor forts. Which is to say, not real good, but still ethereal. And they require corpses, too. So not real good.

Shadows aren't real hot either, you don't get very many of them and they aren't very strong.

Apparitions, on the other hand, are very good. They require population (not corpses) and lots of it, but in freshly captured territory you can reanimate quite a few before everyone dies. They aren't intended as troops of the line, anyway, but more as special forces; you don't NEED millions of them. And, a level 3 priest can make them (level 4 required for horsemen), although level 4/5 are much faster.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Both themes have Protection of the Sepulchre, but SG needs it less. Still useful for summoned low-MR troops like Longdead Horsemen/Archers.

I find that with AE my priests spend most of their time making longdeads. With SG they spend most of their time killing things.

Re: Ermor balance?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dispossessed Spirits are the same as the Spirit Mastery spell, and the autosummon you get in provinces with neither temples nor forts. Which is to say, not real good, but still ethereal. And they require corpses, too. So not real good.

Shadows aren't real hot either, you don't get very many of them and they aren't very strong.

Apparitions, on the other hand, are very good. They require population (not corpses) and lots of it, but in freshly captured territory you can reanimate quite a few before everyone dies. They aren't intended as troops of the line, anyway, but more as special forces; you don't NEED millions of them. And, a level 3 priest can make them (level 4 required for horsemen), although level 4/5 are much faster.

Quote:

And since for the same level of priest you need to pay more with SG and since AE has "Protection of The Sepulchre", I think AE is stronger.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Both themes have Protection of the Sepulchre, but SG needs it less. Still useful for summoned low-MR troops like Longdead Horsemen/Archers.

I find that with AE my priests spend most of their time making longdeads. With SG they spend most of their time killing things. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">By the time you capture a province with SGs weaker troops, everyone is already dead, so no apparitions for you...
While Longdead Horsemen require a 4th lvl priest, the 4th lvl holy priest is the standard priest for AE, while SGs standard priest is 3rd lvl, to get a 4th lvl you need to use your pretender, not very good...
SGs Etheralness is pretty weak, they still get hit a lot...
Also, SGs freespawn damage is negated by magic resistance, which pretty much sucks...
Also, since AEs freespawns are much better than SGs freespawns, a fort+temple on an important province (such as one with a mine) is VERY useful.

Re: Ermor balance?
 

i think too that ae ermor is slightly better .

you get lots of freespawns and lots of mound kings or censors .
sg gets "only" the shadow tribunes . they are cheap temple builders or can reanimate 1 shadow / turn .

the sg leaders are cool because they are immortal but for this they are quite expensive and in midgame you prefer bane lords / wraith lords anyway .

the main strenght of ae ermor is that they can build several raider armies with their freespawns/freespawnleaders which require still a respectable force to stop them .

because they are so huge in size they can deathpillage a conquered province in 1 turn .

while you can easy field 3-4 armies of 300-500 freespawn undeads midgame your enemy still needs about 10 priests with tough guards ( about 25-50 ) or 5 mages with tough guards who can holy pyre or wither bones .

fortunately ae ermor is thnx to swarming quite resistent to most sc's .

300 freespawns have quite a good chance to kill 1-2 scs with not too big losses .


unfortunately ermor has always a serious lack with deathgems and is only a mediocre clamhorder at best . so lategame you will have serious problems against especially arco , pythium , ryleh , caelum , tien chi if they were left alone long enough to start clamhording .

pythium because of communion and caelum because of flyby attacks is already earlygame nasty for ermor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Ermor balance?
 

There should be one or two nations more powerful then all the rest so the AI opponents can actually be more threatening during a single and multiplayer game.

Re: Ermor balance?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">you can easy achieve that :
use impossible ai with cohens crusaders and Agrajags first Version of his umbarthium mod which wasn't balanced .
this way you will have really scary ai opponents http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif