What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

My friends are giving me hard time and saying that ermor is suprerior compared to other races. Is this just BullS**t or is it true?

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

ERMOR is not superior... it's death magic that is superior.

Death spells like Spirit Mastery, Ghost Riders, Tartarian Gate, Pale Riders, Burden of Time and more.

Lots of death magic sites allow you to recruit units as well just for having a death mage visit the site... lots more than the other magics.

During Arena matches Ermor wins 95% of the time because he has some powerful necromancer.

The artifacts for death magic are great too... Wraith Sword anyone ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

I'm assuming you mean Ashen Empire Ermor. They play differently than other races, but as for them being superior... just see how quickly their large armies come apart when there are a few good priests around, or even fire mages. Just like (almost) everything else there's a counter for it. You just have to find it.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hana is correct... priests and archers will destroy most undead armies.

It's not Ermor that is powerful... it's death magic.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Personally, i think Ermor is far superior but heh, i'm dead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . I have had almost all my experience with DOM2 playing variations of Ermor and have learned enough to conquer all opposition. That said, enough experience with "any" race could give you the same opinion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ."Death Magic" rocks, for sure...I can only say i had a HARD time against certain AI races when i was Ermor and could only imagine the punishment a "human" opponent could dish out making me feel..."not so superior" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif .

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

I don't know I want to weigh in on whether death magic is strongest. I'll grant this - Burden of Time against an enemy that's not prepared to dispell it can be a game ender.

Ashen empire is definitely not unbeatable. Frankly, I think C'tis's Tomb Kings setting may be stronger. Sure, Ashen Empire has an almost unlimited number of undead, but they're so very, very, very weak - and it's a tremendous pain in the butt for Ashen Empire to branch out into any other form of magic, or even to research much.

Then too, your borders are weak. At least other races can buy up provincial defense and know it'll weed out spies, slow down invasions, and weaken incoming armies. Ashen Empire doesn't have the cash flow. When everybody's dead, they're not paying taxes.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

Throw "Well of Misery" into that equation and who needs taxes? Besides, when you don't pay taxes you get..."Summons" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Get it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Now you have TONS of cannon fodder in EVERY province while your cranking out Uber-Summons every turn.If your Dominion is 9 or 10 you get much better freebie troops popping up plus...well...there are SO many strategies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Carefull use of tactics and planning is needed when playing against Holy opponents but Death is always near http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif Bruhahahahahahaha!!!

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

Of course Ermor is superior. It wipes the board in solo play against AIs. Let them think that until they get into a multiplayer game. No, thats a rude thought. Scratch that. Hopefully your friends figure out eventually that certain races such as Marignon is perfectly made to be the balance for Ermor. A human player who learns how to play Marignon will wipe Ermor. Other nations can do pretty well also.

Of course then they are bound to tell you that Ulm is way superior. Thats usually the second one. Or sometimes a water nation.

In any case, they will probably go thru each nation one at a time and find ways that they are excellent, and ways that they balance each other.

--
In Dominions, if it looks like a killer strategy then look at it again carefully.
In Dominions, if it looks like a total waste then look at it again carefully.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

Gandalf,

What nation easily wipes Pythium? Pythium seems rather superior to me. But then again I'm a novice.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

There is no one nation that can 'wipe' Pythium. It is well balanced so it doesn't fall into that particular Category.

And you should say "Base Pythium" as opposed to the thematic.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

Ermor [ashen empire/soul gate] are very potent versus the computer AI as it does not recognize the threat of the population killing dominion. In play versus humans they would be much less potent, as others have pointed out.


It is my personal opinion that the Ermor [ashen empire/soul gate] should be Banned from multi-player. Not because they are potent, but becuase they are unfair to the players that start adjacent. Nations starting next to such Ermors are at a huge disadvantage since they are near a population "dead zone". They end up with much less resource in the world near them, not due to anything they did, but due to the bad luck of their starting position. It's such a glaring disadvantage that I'd rather not see these Ermor's in multiplay at all.

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.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

In my Mictlan AAR, Ulm has so far kicked both Ermor's and Pythium's asses, at the same time. Well, Ermor is still around in Africa, but it's missing its capital. And this has been my experience so far : but impossible AI's all around, and suddenly Ermor doesn't do better than the others...

As for death pretenders ruling the arena, I find they usually fall when faced with a decent prophet, and somebody is bound to send one...

6 priests, even basic ones, in an army, will kick undead big time. Or lots af archers. Or even enough heavy infantry, if you use morale boosters. Or fire magic. I hate Ermor, but because it destroys my (future) territories, not because it is harder to beat, at least with an AI.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

Hi all,
I see in the manual that the "fear" bless bonus for Death-9 is only available to undeads. Is this a mistake ?
Cheers

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

No mistake. They do not get life after death on the other hand.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

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!

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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

[ January 06, 2004, 12:02: Message edited by: Wendigo ]

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

But after Evocation 7, Ashen Empire can use Nether Darts. That should be quite potent. And I think they can still use communion, but they don't have the communicants. That is a big difference, but not as big. (I think they have a cheap astral mage).

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

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.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I guess you mean Broken & not Ashen.

The mages are far from cheap, only 1 in 8 of the higher class will roll astral 3.

Every R'lyeh top mage starts with astral 3, and can roll up to 5 with random picks. Arco & Pythium start with astral 3 mages that can roll astral 4.

Jotun can roll astral 3 in 1/4 nornas (only sorcery random picks).

All the above nations will Magic duel your Broken Empire mages to nothingess, so you either field no mages or lose them all. Unlike, say Marignon, Abysia or Midgard Vanheim who can choose to field their other (non astral) mages.

And your mages are expensive due to their unholy skill, you cannot afford to throw them away as Jotun can do with the Seithkonur.

Broken Empire looks very weak & narrow magically to me.

Cheers,
Pepe

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">After the bug fix. Before that, the one who cast Magic Duel got a +99 (or +999, absurd number in either case) bonus for him... And that is the reason for the most fear: better mages won allways. This image was formed becose you only used the spell only when you already had the better mages, and AI doesn't seem to ever cast magic duel.

And yes, I meant the Broken, not Ashen Empire. I don't know much about magic duel, I have never seen it used to fully decimate the mages of other side. And I don't know much about mages of Broken Empire, but I assumed they have a cheap mage. How expensive is the Thaumaturg Graeme Dice mentioned? What magics does he have? 1 astral 2 unholy?

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">
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?
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">True, yet my Last recollection of its use is of a pretty recent game a couple months ago (with the bug fixed). I killed around half a dozen lv1 astral mages (arch seraphs with astral pick & shamen) with a single astral2 norna in a single battle. 3 of them died in just one casting.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Definitely with MD, SS will target instead a size3+ critter up front, or even a lousy trooper. MD is a spell that targets specifically mages, and that's invaluable.

I usually make sure I will not fail, or the caster is expendable & I can replace him/her at a low cost compared to the return for a success...so probability is on my side anyway.

MD scripted mages also target the weakest astral mages first, so even with an astral king on your side you can suffer huge loses to an opponent with cheaper mages.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's not just Pythium. R'lyeh, Arco & Utgard Jotun can also wipe the floor with Grand Thaumaturgs. That's 4 nations out of 17, are you sure you can avoid all of them?

Anyway, excellent points in all these Last Posts. I still consider Broken Ermor magically vulnerable & unflexible, but I can see a couple redeeming qualities that I had missed before.

edit: I cannot count http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ January 06, 2004, 21:00: Message edited by: Wendigo ]

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

Shadow Vestal's are not 'free'. They require a Thamaturg sitting there summoning them. Just a minor point; that needs to be stated. I used to think of them as free but they are actaully quite costly in both research and gold for the first 10 turns in you count what needs to be done.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">True, yet my Last recollection of its use is of a pretty recent game a couple months ago (with the bug fixed). I killed around half a dozen lv1 astral mages (arch seraphs with astral pick & shamen) with a single astral2 norna in a single battle. 3 of them died in just one casting.

</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mind Duel is an area effect spell. So you should always disperse your Astral mages. It's a strange way for targeting the spell. But I think the reason is: if the spell is target on individuals, any successful kill on a Communion master will kill all the slaves also. It makes the spell potentially even more devastating.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

>Shadow Vestal's are not 'free'. They require a Thamaturg sitting there summoning them. Just a minor point; that needs to be stated. I used to think of them as free but they are actaully quite costly in both research and gold for the first 10 turns in you count what needs to be done.


This is absolutely correct. They are only gold/production free. They do cost a character-turn for each.

However they are well worth the cost. By about turn 12 you can send out a 20ish strong force of them as an extra independent cracking army. The extra expansion is well worth the cost in time spent generating them.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IMHO it is often an advantage to be next to Ermor. The Ashen dominion typically only hurts if you're looking at annexing Ermor's lands. As Ermor seems to be always starved for allies, in my experience it's not hard to ally with them, and work the situation to considerable advantage.

True, it sucks to be next to a Dominion 10 Ermor who just won't negotiate -- but that's not any worse than any other crazy neighbor who doesn't seem to care about winning.

Re: What do you think about ermor in dom2
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thaumaturgs are not that expensive, which is what the original poster was referring to for use as a communicant.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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.