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Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Quote:

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Thaumaturgs are not that expensive, which is what the original poster was referring to for use as a communicant.

Quote:

I think you overrate the danger of magic duel, as even in DOM 1 an astral 3 mage had a (3+1d6)/(5+1d6) chance of beating an astral 5 mage in a duel. [/qb]

Yet, who would you put your money on?

In my Dom I experience the spell had always a considerable effect in battles between Astral nations. In Dom II it is weaker (ties kill both), but still strong.

It's not just the fact that Broken Empire is one of the weakest Astral nations, it's that combined with:

-The mages being expensive for the amount of 'Astral power' they can field when facing another Astral nation.
-The nation has no alternate mages nor priests, apart from the weak cultist.

Heck, Pythium could use 150 gold Astral2 Theurgs to Magic duel 340 gold Grand Thaumaturgs on equal terms....

[ January 06, 2004, 14:56: Message edited by: Wendigo ]

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Don't forget your Thamaturgs and Grand Thamaturgs tendancy to after getting done with your scripted spells, to only cast unholy buffing spells http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

That can in and of itself, make you want to shoot them.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Quote:

Originally posted by Wendigo:
Heck, Pythium could use 150 gold Astral2 Theurgs to Magic duel 340 gold Grand Thaumaturgs on equal terms....

OTOH a beefed up Grand Thaumaturg (magic penetration items, communion, crystal shield, power of the spheres, whatever) can try Apostacy on this Theurg. Pretty funny when it works, and from my tests I can say a 4-slaves communion and a Spell Focus is enough to have a regular Theurg change sides ~50% of the time.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Quote:

Originally posted by Wendigo:

Ermor [broken empire] is an excellent nation that combines very good troops with some astral and death magic. It is a very capable nation that is worth exploring. [/qb]

I'd rather play Ashen (but this is mainly personal taste, of course).

Broken Ermor looks like a weak Pythium to me: similar troops, no communicants & hydras, lose strong astral, water & air in exchange for poor astral, poor death & unholy (poor trade IMO).

Trade-offs also from their mages having unholy priestly level: they cannot reanimate & research/cast rituals at the same time.

Cheers,
Pepe [/QB][/quote]

Broken Ermor has one weakness - i.e. expansive mages.

But they have one key advantage which can compensate most shortcomings. Their Ermor cultist can reanimate ghouls. If started from the beginning of the game, their castle will be basically unbreachable. They also get one free each turn Shadow Vestal from the capital site. They're holy and ethereal. And since they're from site, you can keep getting them even under seige.

Their regular troop is almost as good as Pythium. And I don't think death is weak, at least comparing to air and water. Less flashy on the battlefield but it has a lot of goodies and summons outside. The astral/death combination is also notoriously powerful once you get to Evocation 7. Moreover, broken Ermor's ether darter is not capital-only. Given enough cash, you can sprinkle the whole battlefield with these missle of death.

Yes. It might be weaken than Pythium but I don't think that the Broken Ermor has much to complain about comparing to other nations.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Quote:

Originally posted by Wendigo:
To the original poster:

Others have comented SP, so I will just cover MP:
Ermor IMO is a bit stronger in Dom II than it was in Dom I (where it was rated poorly by most), the elemental magics and in particular Air & Fire are a bit weaker than they were, and those were pretty good at killing undead. Blood has also been downed a lot, and seeing as Ermor had the hardest access to it due to the nature of its population killing dominion this also good news for the undead nation.

You can also do some funny stuff with bless in Dom II, and Ermor has the most design points to draw from here, even if it cannot push recruitment of its unholy troops with as much control as a live nation.

Finally, the Undead pretenders seem to have been upped with the removal of encumbrance from Dom I, which is also good news for Ermor.

Due to all the above I would rate Ashen Empire stronger than it was in Dom I, but not between the top nations...Ermor still has a lot of drawbacks.

It is however a unique nation with an extremely different style, and that makes it a popular choice. In the end, you should play whichever nations attract you more and not those that you percieve as the most powerful, the differences are really not that big and random stuff like starting location & neighbours, or game settings have a much higher influence in who wins IMO. So just play what you like most.

Ashen Ermor is also stronger from three other reasons (Saber, if you're reading, I found it out from the battle with you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif :
1) Banishment is now slightly less powerful;
2) The addition of a few evocation spells has made the Ermor mages more useful on the battlefield;
3) The bless effects... Ashen Ermor is the only one who can have an insanely powerful pretender, that could boost up their Unholy Knights quite a bit. But, of course, they're still very vulnerable to "Dust to Dust" - you can't have everything http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Quote:

Originally posted by Wendigo:
It's not just the fact that Broken Empire is one of the weakest Astral nations, it's that combined with:

-The mages being expensive for the amount of 'Astral power' they can field when facing another Astral nation.
-The nation has no alternate mages nor priests, apart from the weak cultist.

That's all true, but it still has strengths:

- Excellent infantry.

- Ashen Empire/Soul Gate have to spend their gems on mages or priests, Broken Empire can aim for Enchantment 4 from the start and raise hordes of Behemoths which are very good with etherealness pre-researched.

- Leave a few thaumaturgs where your armies just fought to get free well-equipped soulless. No other nation can hoard free undead as easily while still relying on excellent regular troops.

- The Vestals lack punch and are slow to gather in numbers, but they're free and with battlefield-wide power of the sepulchre (+4 ATT and AP, better than fire-8 blessing!) they're quite good units.

- With Jotunheim, the only nation that can rely on mass Nether darts.

- Powered Apostacy can be nasty (does someone know if it works on enemy prophets?).

All in all, I've not found the MD liability to be that big of an issue. Just be cautious when meeting powerful astral nations, and if you send GTs give them proper equipment, and cast power of the spheres before anything else. If you pick a pretender with some earth magic, you should have no problem boosting a couple astral-3 GTs to level 7 or 8 when you reach Construction 6.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Quote:

Originally posted by Endoperez:
Level 9 deaht blessing gives greater fear to unholy troops (or undead unholy, if there is difference), and only fear to other blessable troops. I think level 9 in death gives more fear than just the level 8 blessing for all blessed units, but am not sure.

Someone should research that!

I tried a death-9 PoD with Broken Empire (for mass ghost summoning rather than death blessing) and noticed this:

- summon a Mound Fiend
- give him a shroud and an horror helmet

What do you get? A leader even scarier than your pretender - fear +20!

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Quote:

Originally posted by ywl:
They also get one free each turn Shadow Vestal from the capital site.

Actually, they get two Shadow Vestals per turn, one from each site.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

>They also get one free each turn Shadow Vestal from the capital site. They're holy and ethereal. And since they're from site, you can keep getting them even under seige.

They actually have two sites that can each summon a Shadow Vestal. That's two free ethereal sacreds per turn. Not the greatest thing in the universe... but nothing to sneeze at.

>Their regular troop is almost as good as Pythium. And I don't think death is weak, at least comparing to air and water. Less flashy on the battlefield but it has a lot of goodies and summons outside. The astral/death combination is also notoriously powerful once you get to Evocation 7. Moreover, broken Ermor's ether darter is not capital-only. Given enough cash, you can sprinkle the whole battlefield with these missle of death.

I have found that the ability to summon skeletons backed by mages casting Nether Darts, Paralyze, and Soul Slay (I always pack a banner/light of the northern star when using astral-2 nations), to be very potent. Add in the free Shadow Vestals and the core of excellent troops, and I'd say that Broken Empire is a very good nation. I freely submit that main theme Pythium is stronger... but that can be said for any nation. In relation to the other nations the Broken Empire theme is just fine.

The major vulerability of BE is Magic Duel (an issue for all astral-2 nations). If I were to play this theme in a multiplayer setting I would give consideration to taking a strong astral pretender in order to help mitigate this problem.

[ January 06, 2004, 19:28: Message edited by: apoger ]

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2

Quote:

Originally posted by Wendigo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Thaumaturgs are not that expensive, which is what the original poster was referring to for use as a communicant.

I thought so. Yet I do not consider them expensive as an absolute value, I consider them expensive related to their use & related to comparable mages.

Compare the cost of the following alternate communion slaves:
Thaumaturg 130, vaetti hag 55, seithkona 90, theurg communicant 50, theurg acolyte 90, starchild 85, shaman 110.
<hr /></blockquote>You neglect to mention that only the thaumaturg, communicant and acolyte are sacred. Yes, we all know Pythium has too good communion slaves too cheap, on top of all their other powerful stuff. But Broken Empire Ermor is pretty well up there if you are looking at upkeep (only the vaetti hag beats it of the non-Pythium units you listed).

BTW, you are neglecting communion/sabbath interoperation: Mictlan priests and warlock apprentices can also be used as communion slaves, and both of them are sacred too.

Quote:

<blockquote>quote:<hr />I think you overrate the danger of magic duel, as even in DOM 1 an astral 3 mage had a (3+1d6)/(5+1d6) chance of beating an astral 5 mage in a duel.

Yet, who would you put your money on?

In my Dom I experience the spell had always a considerable effect in battles between Astral nations. In Dom II it is weaker (ties kill both), but still strong.
<hr /></blockquote>
In Dom I the spell was bugged for a long time and nobody knew. Then it was incorrectly fixed (IIRC) and it took a while to find that out too. It's entirely possible that it was always more feared than its actual effectiveness really justified.

Do you have more chance of killing that enemy astral mage with Magic Duel, or with Soul Slay? Which one will kill *you* if you fail?

Quote:

It's not just the fact that Broken Empire is one of the weakest Astral nations, it's that combined with:

-The mages being expensive for the amount of 'Astral power' they can field when facing another Astral nation.
-The nation has no alternate mages nor priests, apart from the weak cultist.

Heck, Pythium could use 150 gold Astral2 Theurgs to Magic duel 340 gold Grand Thaumaturgs on equal terms....

Yes, Pythium is too good, especially in astral and communions. But there are 15 other nations you will face that AREN'T PYTHIUM. Just because something doesn't work against Pythium doesn't mean it doesn't work in general.

Marignon is nasty to face too, but for other reasons.