Re: Ermor Themes
 

i like n9 white centaurs (+6 berserk and 3 regen i think)and miamasa could probably out skeleton spam him and of course false horror spam caelum would be fun

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Fire 9 Vanir would deal out magical damage, and I think both their defense and magic resistance are above normal. Also, those Dwarves have Earth, and Blade Wind should be a killer against low-prot units, even if they are ethereal (it did deal magical damage, didn't it? It at least used to).

Re: Ermor Themes
 

The difficulty with focusing on troops is supply. Natons like Pan can compensate with nature mages, but using them in the field will cripple your research, the one real advantage over the SG strategy. That was the other reason I played C'tis (DT), I got my own troops that would not starve.

And there is still the issue that your units (particularly with priests to bless them) cannot be everywhere at once. Sauromancers casting wither bones is about as cost effective as it gets to fighting undead raiding squads, band they were still spread to thin.

And yes, in many cases the sauros spam better, however SG doesn't really need to spam. Simply use packs of centurions, if they do get defeated by a large pack of spammers, simply regroup them and and try with a large force. Without relief the sauros will get overcome sooner or later, and getting relief going in the time frame you need would be quite difficult.

If I were to try again, I would probably do a carrion woods bless involving fire. Use black centaurs early, gradually switch to vine beasts. Not that great of chance of working, but maybe interesting.

In any case, I can't think of any other nation that requires as specific of strategies to have even a hope of defeating them 1vs.1.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

The problem with those strategies (apart from the supply issue) is that your troops will likely get diseased in the first battle due to apparitions, so Pangeae seems to be the most effective choice for a bless troop strategy. However the centaurs are very expensive, so you need good scales, a lvl 9 bless and very high dominion.
So you will be likely to create only one army, whereas the ermor player will run rampant through your provinces. If you split your main army, they will most likely get overwhelmed by the paralizing spirits and lifedraining ghosts.

And the ermor player will equip his centurion prophet with a fire resist ring, which will provide another nasty problem.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

The disease cloud won't affect the units if they have their mirror images intact, right? At least other AoE effects won't, to my knowledge.

Your points may be correct... It's an interesting problem, really; I do share the view that it's a difficult proposition no matter the strategy, especially against such a skillfull foe as Turin. But, I do think that feature is shared by AE Ermor and CW Pan too.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

well, thos centurions are certainly nice looking. I don't know anything about MP strats at all. It would seem to hinge on limiting the Ermor dominion though. Certainly when I use vampires with Mictlan my domain is paramount to effectively using them.

How about Marignon, Inquisitors, good fire magic ? The right blessing could cause some problems.

This is a really interesting thread btw.

Spiro.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Jurri: The Machakan kamikazes are the key to the problem. Remember those Sorcerers that just wouldn't die? That should work fine against the undead, too.

That aside, do you think Phoenix Pyre would help against the undeads? Witch Doctors can cast it, and those can be everywhere, and the spell deals some damage over a widespread area. Of course, fatigue will kill the mages sooner or later (Summon Earthpower may help here), but it might just work out. Of course, getting to that level of research is a problem... but then anything involving the undead is a problem.

Spirokeat: Dominion is mighty hard to undo, and the undead can easily afford maximum Dominion. If you can pull it out, everything will be easier though. Friendly Dominion isn't still enough for Immortals though: assassination spells will remove all their items and send them back home regardless, and commanders that keep on dying aren't that useful. I'm addicted to Mind Hunt now.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

I have dueled with the other two dead themes, played by at least average players, and there is not the same degree of difficulty. Both lack stealth freespawns, and both lack immortal summons from turn one.

The have their strengths, AE troop horde is fearsome for the unprepared, CW can make mincemeat of thugs and SCs. But both have real trouble going up against enough priests.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Thats why I was thinking of a nation like Mari who has special stealthy priests to undo dominion. Especially if you can give them a stone idol or something. Though i'm not sure how the maths on that would stack up.

But I suppose keeping them slapped and itemless would go a long way too.

SPiro.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Inquisitors aren't stealthy, unless I am grossly mistaken. Stealth priests still have to "uncloak" to preach however, so you will need to spend one turn in the province, and pray the Nine that the hordes aren't going to attack you (that sounds unlikely, if they have seen your lovely Inquisitors).

I haven't been impressed with Stone Idols myself: they didn't seem to have much of an effect, with several needed to start having a real impact, and the difficulty of keeping that Dominion down: your Dominion has to go in that province and grows high for the province to remain converted. I have been fighting a Black Forest Ulm recently, and despite all my best efforts, I haven't really broken down their Dominion (still an healthy 9/10 in their core provinces), and we have been neighbours (with a lot of temples on both sides) for... what, sixty turns?

The Skeptics should be able to do that, however: 50 gold is a lot better than 20 gems (kind of expensive when fighting a mad opponent), and they will work right as soon as they enter the province. They bring their own problems, of course: one skeptic means one less commander that could be used to do something else. Down with the undead!

Re: Ermor Themes
 

No, they can preach while remaining hidden.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Inquisitors no, but the monk(?) is. I have used them to stealth preach and never had to uncloak them, however: sneaking in and starting to preach worked just fine.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Well I haven´t checked that, might very well be. But another problem for the sacred f9 troops is that you won´t have many compared to ermor and without an e9 blessing, your troops will simply succumb to fatigue when they try to wade through hundreds of spirits/shadows. Especially when the spectators come out and start skeleton spamming. If you go for f9/e9 you won´t have enough points for a good economy and high dominion.

As for preaching out ermor, the problem is that SGermor spends all his money on temples and has no upkeep to pay for his troops, so the actual income is not that low. Even with no fire sites I had an income of ~200/turn in the second game vs qm. That means you have to have a starting dominion of 10 and build a temple every turn to win the dominion war vs ermor. If you want to build mages this won´t be possible.

Stealth preaching won´t be possible vs ermor, because usually border provinces get patrolled by one freespawn leader with his 75 troops.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Of course stealth-preaching is fine. I don't know what I was on when I wrote it wouldn't work, as I make use of that more than once in a while. I deserve a good ol' slapping.

Thank you both for setting the record straigth.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

My Bad,

Its the friars that are stealthy. The inquisitors are just double priest level against enemy dominion. So you would have to use them to supress incroaching enemy dom.

I've not used Mari so not sure how stealthy units and preach works to be honest.

I'm working on the assumption of course that your priest level dictates the effectiveness of your preach and so all things being equal (temple etc) then you would have an adverse effect on an enemy dominion should you have the higher priest.

Anyone have any idea of how effective blood sacrifice is in comparison to normal preach >?

Spiro

Re: Ermor Themes
 

how about arco sceptics with stone idols and winged shoes??

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Hey, Alneyan, those kamikaze sorcerors trump everything! Undead included.

Turin, what turn will you have 100 spirits? What about 200 or 300? Do the fire-blessed Vans or centaurs get a magical repel too, or is it only functional when attacking? I've almost convinced myself that I should duel you, if only to see what sort of tactics you exactly use (you guys conveniently not saving any turn files http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif).

I think every slave sacrificed counts as a single temple-check; that is, depending on your starting dominion you may or may not increase dominion in the province. So, in effect saccing 3 slaves will mean the equivalent of 3 temples' dominion push. If I remember it right.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Why winged shoes ?

Im wondering what the effect on the dominion calculation of stone idols in conjunction with two preaches would be.

How is dominion calculated. there would appear to be a few ways to add to it....pretender spread, prophet spread, temple spread, preach spread, direct preach. Troop spread (juggernaught)

Then you have stone idols and that demon lord who makes people lose faith.

Can their be only a single increase via personal spread...so for example a pretender spread would override a prohpet spread or will they stack ?

Spiro

Re: Ermor Themes
 

hmm I just did a quick count and on turn 15 I had ~ 300 troops in the first game vs qm.

In the second game I have on turn 26 ~650 troops . Now I guess qm killed certainly more than 400 of mine, so about 1k troops by turn 25.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

because the shoes let them get where they are needed quickly

Re: Ermor Themes
 

And the Winged Shoes help avoid destroying *your* Dominion. I wouldn't put Stone Idols on skeptics though: it sounds kind of redudant, as only one of those is the better bargain depending on your situation (the Skeptic is usually a lot cheaper, but it means one less capital-only commander, so if you are swimming in gems...).

Everything related to increasing/reducing Dominion stacks, for both sides, so you'd better bring in heavy forces to destroy a Dominion -10 quickly. I think the Priest level only affects how high you can go, so it wouldn't help here: Inquisitors ought to work a lot better than regular priests, however.

Still, if you are serious about taking down enemy Dominion soon, don't be a miser and deploy a bunch of priests, and assorted things (Pretender welcome).

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Are we sure about priest level not affecting it ?

Looking at what it says about inquisitors it would indicate that their preist level is considered double for attacking enemy dominion. But if priest level only affects how high you can get your dominion up then it has no effect at all as you would have to be in positive dominion to increase your own up.

Spiro

Re: Ermor Themes
 

I doubt we are sure about *anything* regarding Dominion: I only expressed my own opinion on the matter, hence the "I think" (and not "It is written, in the Codex of the First Ones").

Good point about the description for those Inquisitors. I'm afraid I'm in the dark about how they work exactly then.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Somewhere is floating a pdf on dominion spread. Also KO commented on the matter at some point. Probably both can be found in that manual addenda that Liga was doing. You can't get that closer to the codex of the first ones, I think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Then there's the oral tradition... I bet if you made a thorought search you'd find all sorts of interesting stuff on the matter, and possibly even the two sources mentioned above.

Anyway, I think a priest's chance to get an increase on dominion is 10% times priest level. So, a level 4 inquisitor gets 80% in hostile dominion.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

You can find some information here that has most of the information on how Dominion works in an easy to read format from Bruce.

Edit: Fixed link.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Thanks Zen, thats an interesting read and will alter substantially how I play with Dominion.

Spirokeat

Re: Ermor Themes
 

I don't know much about MP strategies, and I know that the theme I'm about to suggest is perhaps a little sub-optimal, but has anyone thought of Fires of the Faith Marignon? IIRC, each of their provinces has a free Holy-1 Inquisitor preaching every turn, and if you start with a Dominion of 10 (Virtue or Glyph most likely), then it's just possible you might be able to win the dominion war.

If you choose to go the Virtue route, and you think you can keep your dominion up, you might also think about the Wrath global. Purgatory is another option.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Pangaea can beat SG Ermor when played with fighting Ermor:SG in mind. You can't make your dominion as heavy as Ermors, but thats okay. Pans can deal with early and middle game freespawn/spams and Centaur Warriors hypereffective especially 1on1 when you can send a dryad prophet (2+ other dryads) with 20+ warriors (depends on game settings) through indeps to Ermor land. Use tangle vine script on the early game thugs and expand as fast as you can with Pretender cheeze in your land (medusa's pretty good) and cut Ermor expansion.

If you can harrass Ermor long enough and cut their gold/thuggery to either A) Get Lamia's going or B) Blood (use xbreeding to fortify chaff provinces).

A good research strategy is:
Alt 3
Conj 3 (Earthpower, Call of the Wild)
Alt 4 (Swarm)
Alt 5 (Mother Oak)
Conj 6 (Lamias)

You should research about as fast as SG:Ermor even with early Dryads out causing havok. Depending on the mapsize I might not even search for sites, use Mother Oak to fuel the troops to get a critical mass of either blood/lamias.

You should be able to get Lamia's online around turn 16+ depending on how the early game goes.

Edit: Also this is no foolproof strategy. It's just one that works very well against SG. Alot of things can go wrong for you or you opponent can get lucky. The key to 1v1 dominions is being aggressive.

You could also do this with base Marignon. Though the formula is much simpler. Only make xbows (you should have a good 250-300 by turn 15) speedresearch Ench 4 then alt 4 (for luck if you want) go evocation until you get to firestorm (early game you are looking for falling fires). Use mostly Witch Hunters. Assume your opponent is going to become fully fire resistant and use Witch Hunter Communicant slaves as Astral Shield by setting their script to "hold, hold, hold, hold, hold attack"

With a Master with personal luck, resist magic, astral shield, astral weapon, fire resistance, retreat.

It's unlikely that SG Ermor will be able to fit more than 4-5 (if he's lucky) anti-missle and anti-fire. Use flaming arrows to cut through chaff, use your pretender to deal with opponents pretender (something big with regen usually works pretty good for stalling, make sure it has air shield and a ring of fire resistance).;

Re: Ermor Themes
 

try a naga with N9 + whatever else you want and it will get 13 lamias per turn, add that to gift of health and boom...

Re: Ermor Themes
 

You should be able to get skull staves and drain life before you could get relief, but that's an expensive investment.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Stealthy priests remain stealthy while preaching in enemy territory. Friar's don't really affect high dominion however.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

THat's a twisted question I have, but here it goes...

People consider Marignon a weak-ish nation in multiplayer. While I'm not able to check this myself, I have a fun idea how to make it dangerous.

Ally with Ermor.

From what I hear, Ermor is quite dangerous and that's why people tend to gang up on it early. If Ermor is left alone, it becomes much more dangerous, right ? And it's still more dangerous to others than to you, I suppose. Once Ermor gets dangerous, crippling some of your enemies in process, you (theoreticaly) should be able to fight it reasonably. I mean, Marignon is quite nicely equipped to fight undead, right ? And stop Ermor's dominion with inquisitors. It would be like riding a tiger, but maybe - just maybe - easier to pull off than winning conventionally ?

Re: Ermor Themes
 

I like the way you think!

Ermor Theme with ALL-Death magic only?
 

Is it possible to play SG/AE with a pretender that only knows Death Magic?

I would consider it impossible, since how would one defend against e.g. against massed Flaming Arrows without Rain or a Staff of Storm?

Re: Ermor Theme with ALL-Death magic only?
 

Darkness?

Re: Ermor Theme with ALL-Death magic only?
 

or just the fact that by the time flaming arrows could actually be massed you could probably be bringing 1000+ troops to a battle (with AE) not to mention empower, since you get quite alot of gems (and dusk elders get 1 random so 30 gems to reach lvl 2 then most paths have a booster

Re: Ermor Theme with ALL-Death magic only?
 

Hah. So you are saying by turn 10 AE will have both 1000+ troops and enough gems to empower dusk elders. Let alone enough research.

Re: Ermor Theme with ALL-Death magic only?
 

no im not, im also not saying that there is a high chance of someone marching in with a ton of flaming archers. especially considering the supply problems that will either force them to be A: too small to threaten you B:take more time to forge supply items or C:too afraid to attack you anyway

Re: Ermor Theme with ALL-Death magic only?
 

Marignon crossbowman will not survive in melee combat against longdead or soulless, so it doesn't matter that much if they are diseased from starvation.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

I did not find it difficult to march into SoulGate with dozens of starved, cheap disposable 8gp shortbows and a fire mage to wreak havoc against an unexperienced player...but this is not the point!

It was just one example and I was generally wondering whether it can be considered a mistake to play undead Ermor in MP with a Death-only pretender. Death magic is pretty versatile, but is it versatile enough?

---

Darkness is good advice, I forgot about that actually. It probably counters a lot except battlefield-wide destruction like Wrathing Squads. How would I counter against Darkness besides enlisting undead myself?

Re: Ermor Themes
 

Personally, I wouldn't take death only with undead Ermor. Actually, I can't see a reason why you would do that, unless you're trying to handicap yourself. After all - look at the lich queen (unmodded) : Dominion 10, Death 10, Magic / Luck 3, all other scales at their worst, and the expensive castle, you still have 149 points left, enough for 3 and 2 in other paths; dropping death to D9 gives another 56 points.

A D9 Wyrm means cutting the castle; a human pretender puts even more limits on it, but ... Why? You'd be choosing to handicap yourself.

Even if you thought you could get by with only death magic, I always take at least fire and/or earth with a death theme, since those gems will supplement a horrible gold income.

Re: Ermor Themes
 

and therefore allow castles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif i also try to take some nature just incase i need to feed something