What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

And could you explain your reasoning?

I am a newbie, so will give my initial choices:

Order +1 to derive some income while people are still in the province.

Sloth 3 because AE never needs resources.

Cold 0 but am leaning towards cold 3 if all my forces will be cold resistant.

Death 2 because of default for AE.

Luck neutral since we will not have the funds to rebuild destroyed facilities.

Magic Neutral.

Domain eight. Not sure if too high or too low.

The remaining points are enough for a poor rainbow mage.

Thanks for your time,
Aikamun

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

Chaos 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3, Death 3, Misfortune 3 and Magic/Drain 3(depends on the tactics).
When you need coins,ALCHEMY.
Chaos 3 and Misfortune 3.Lost a lab is not a big deal,but 240 point is.
Sloth 3, AE never need resources.
Cold 3, Almost all AE unit resist cold 100%.
Death 3, 2 is default but why dont you raise it for another 40 points and make your dominion more destructive?
Magic 3 if you want increase your research speed, your mage-summon spell cost lots and its' hard to keep a saga group for AE. If you want to rush by tons and tons longdeads, choose Drain 3 to get more design points and a higher MR for banishment.

now, Increase dominion strength to 10.
the faster you spread your dominion, the faster dust and ashes cover entire world.

20 Point Castel.

SP, give your god 7~8 death sphere. you'll find that the ULTRADARK is a terminator.
MP, the points you left is enough to design a awesome ALL-4 Rainbow Pretender (in MP....everyone but Tomb/Carrion will joint together against your god)

[ January 25, 2004, 05:55: Message edited by: void ]

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Turmoil 3, your dominion kills people too fast to get any money from them.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Same and a good choice

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Cold 3, free points for undead who don't need any preference or supply

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Death 3, your people are already dying and you can't get money from it. Might as well get more points and make supply even harder.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Luck 3. With so much Turmoil you'll need this. You'll get free labs, fortresses, gold, gems. What's not to like


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I like Magic 3, but some don't. Reason being Ashen Researches slow as you rely on your death gem income in order to get researchers, even little ones like Spectators.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">At least 8, sometimes 9, and sometimes 10. Depends on what map you are playing on.


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

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

Always go all out with the Turmoil-3 and Sloth-3. Your income is nonexistent anyway. Just make up the difference by cranking taxes to 200. They'll all die anyway. Free +240.

Cold-3 or Heat-3 are both valid options: If you're playing in multiplayer, consider whether the bulk of the other human players favor heat or cold, and which one will make them suffer more: When fighting Caelum or Jotunheim, go with Heat. When fighting normal or miasma C'tis, Abyssia, or Machaka, go with Cold. Otherwise, go with Cold, it helps your undead cold auras. Other than the few cold aura equipped, however, the undead are more or less entirely indifferent to the heat or cold....so pick one for the free +120.

Death-3. Ashen Empire requires only Death-2, but in for a penny, in for a pound. +40 more points free.

Luck can go either way, or neither way: If you have the points to spare after taking the magic you want, luck 3 doesn't hurt: A wodge of gems here and there. On the other hand, misfortune won't kill you either: "Oh, no, I just lost 1/4th of my zero population! Whatever will I do?"

Magic can go either way or neither way: Drain nets you a free +120 and slightly impedes the efforts of enemy priests to banish your undead by increasing their MR. Hurts your research rather hard. Magic helps your researchers, which are subpar as it is, but makes your undead slightly more banishable. It'll also improve the quality of random events you get if you take Luck. Which way you go is entirely dependent on your point supply. If you can spare it, go for it.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

Hmm, has anyone checked how much more gold you can get if you don't max out death, turmoil, and sloth? Seems like Ermor is gold-poor and does have some good uses for gold (temples, for one). I guess the theory is you can get so much extra pretender magic for it, that that's better?

PvK

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ashen Empire dominion kills population really fast even if you took growth scale, so any any scales that depend on population to be useful are pretty much wasted.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

One fun random event is the one where an foreign visiting prince (or something) dies and leaves 1500 gold and a magic item. Luck can pay for a lot of temples if you are lucky http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

I think that particular even is only available to people with high luck and death scales.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

Always pick max Turmoil, Sloth, Cold, Death.

Magic +1 gives you decent research, and avoid the MR penalty you get with Magic +2/+3.

Luck, pick 0, and push that up to +3 if you have spare design points after buying the essentials.

Dominion 8+.

Castle, depends. I often go with the smaller one, but the 60-points citadel is a tough nut to crack with 100's of ghouls to defend it. Add a BVC to one of your leaders here and storming your citadels will be a very painful experience to most other nations.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

With castles, bear in mind that the Citadel is significantly more expensive gold-wise, if memory serves. Gold may well be in short supply unless the map's filled with high-valued fire and earth sites, or you outrace your own dominion and pillage like crazy -- which might be an argument against picking a very high dominion, as your neighboring pop might die well before you get a chance to exploit them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ashen Empire requires a minimum of Death-2. You couldn't take Growth if you wanted, and with Death scale, in for a penny, in for a pound. A single point of Death scale kills everyone, so you may as well get the points for all of it.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I went luck+3 in my Last game. But... it's worthless! There are no good events. None. Good events depend on your scales, and if all your scales are -3, the only "good" event is the necromancer showing up (due to death 3, I imagine). However, because "free" "volunteers" still demand pay, that's a major negative. Sometimes militia show up, too - that can be crippling... they die of disease, and cost you a good 128 gold in so doing (25 units * 7 gold each * 11 turns to die from disease)/15.

So - DON'T choose luck! Luck is worthless to ashen empire. You don't even get many gems, due to the drain scale.

Next time I design an Ashen god, it will be -3 all scales, cheapest (gold-wise) castle, Dominion 9, an undead - possibly immortal - god, and the rest on magic paths. Don't worry about bless effects, BTW... knights are super-rare no matter what you do, and only have 6 or 7 HP (any fire spell annihilates them).

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Drain scale? What drain scale?

So - DON'T choose drain! Drain is worthless to ashen empire. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ January 26, 2004, 01:32: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

Seems to me drain gives a good bonus to magic resistance, helping your forces survive banishment, which is rather important. No?

PvK

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Drain is essential... your minions die like flies even with +1 MR. Without it, you'd be toast. You can always forge skulls and quills for research - con-4 is easily in reach of an Ermor pretender in a few turns.

Besides, it's good to make your dominion as hostile as possible to everyone else=)

[ January 26, 2004, 02:42: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ermor is all about being as hostile as possible to everyone else. That's why you get to cast all those immensely hostile globals: Utterdark, Burden of Time, Wrath of God, Foul Air, the works. Turn the entire world into a steaming cesspool of hellish darkness. Muhahaha!

Remember: Kill one, and you are a murderer. Kill thousands, and you are a conqueror. Kill ALL, and you are a God!

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No. There's only 1 point of difference between drain+3 and magic+1, and the difference on the battlefield is unnoticeable. OTOH with the latter your Dusk Elders are worth 4 more research points (7 instead of 3), and that's huge. Ermor can't afford building Skull Mentors as it needs the gems for its summons. Whoever claims drain is essential for Ashen Empire hasn't tried it with a magic scale yet.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No. There's only 1 point of difference between drain+3 and magic+1, and the difference on the battlefield is unnoticeable. OTOH with the latter your Dusk Elders are worth 4 more research points (7 instead of 3), and that's huge. Ermor can't afford building Skull Mentors as it needs the gems for its summons. Whoever claims drain is essential for Ashen Empire hasn't tried it with a magic scale yet. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Research+9 Skull: Amethyst*10
Dusk Elder Research+7(Magic 3): Amethyst*23
SO,Ermor COULD afford building skulls.

I have tried both drain-3/magic-3 scale.
The magic one is better when you choose magic(revive elders at the start).
The drain one is better when you choose might(revive bishops at the start).

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I went luck+3 in my Last game. But... it's worthless! There are no good events. None. Good events depend on your scales, and if all your scales are -3, the only "good" event is the necromancer showing up (due to death 3, I imagine). However, because "free" "volunteers" still demand pay, that's a major negative. Sometimes militia show up, too - that can be crippling... they die of disease, and cost you a good 128 gold in so doing (25 units * 7 gold each * 11 turns to die from disease)/15.

So - DON'T choose luck! Luck is worthless to ashen empire. You don't even get many gems, due to the drain scale.

Next time I design an Ashen god, it will be -3 all scales, cheapest (gold-wise) castle, Dominion 9, an undead - possibly immortal - god, and the rest on magic paths. Don't worry about bless effects, BTW... knights are super-rare no matter what you do, and only have 6 or 7 HP (any fire spell annihilates them). </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Don't take drain with AE/SG Ermor. They have terrible research to begin with, and depend totally on summons to have any unit that isn't pathetic. And you can't afford Skull Mentors, not because you need the gems to summon more researchers, but because you need them to summon Behemoths, Wraith Lords, Armies of the Dead, etc...

Luck, on the other hand, isn't bad. You get free gems, which is always nice (especially for AE/SG which don't have a good mage other than their pretender to search with, dusk elders are very expensive and nothing else has a random). And you don't get your temples and labs destroyed by bad events (which you would otherwise get a lot, with turmoil). Having your provinces conquered is irritating too.

If you don't take luck and magic - what are you doing with the points? Sinking even more points into a pretender that can only be in one place at a time? I know you aren't spending them on order, productivity, growth (ha!)...

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">(1) A Dusk Elder is worth 9 RP with Magic+3, not 7
(2) A Dusk Elder costs 20 to summon, not 23
(3) A Dusk Elder gains experience, a Skull Mentor doesn't
(4) A Dusk Elder can lead armies, a Skull Mentor can't
(5) A Dusk Elder can fight, a Skull Mentor can't
(6) A Dusk Elder can summon things, a Skull Mentor can't

Many reasons to choose Dusk Elders over Skull Mentors.

Quote:

SO,Ermor COULD afford building skulls.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would surely build some if I picked Drain+3, but I'd never pick Drain with Ashen Empire anyway, so as far as I'm concerned, the debate is closed.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm with you on Magic +3. But even if it's Magic+3, there are still good reasons to have the Skull. The cost of a Skull plus a spectator is 22 gems. It gives you 16 research points at Magic +3. The cost of a Dusk Elder alone is 20 gems and give you only 9 research points. The Skull is also transferrable and you can put them on less expensive mages such as sages or spectral mages if you got to Conjuration 6 already. So, it's not a bad idea to forge some Skulls if you can spare the gems.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

I don't believe Ashen or Soul Gate Ermor has many 'spare' gems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Considering the sheer amount of troops needed later in the game, you need as many fodder troop producing animators and semi-decent troops (Ladies, Bane Lords, etc) that you dont' have alot of gems to spare. And if you did you'd probably be forging skull staffs so your Dusk Elders could cast Darkness and Rigor Mortis.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A pretender with 4+ in each path is nice for site-searching, as Ermor is gem-hungry. Such a pretender can do quite nicely in combat, too... casting any spell. If you minimize all scales, your god can even be immortal on top of having 4+ in all paths.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Drain is essential... your minions die like flies even with +1 MR. Without it, you'd be toast. You can always forge skulls and quills for research - con-4 is easily in reach of an Ermor pretender in a few turns.

Besides, it's good to make your dominion as hostile as possible to everyone else=) </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's not really a very good idea to choose Drain-3. Your undeads, even in Dom 2, would be banished by the bundle anyway. There isn't too much point to protect them. It's better to improve your research using Magic Scale. Skull is possible but it's not gauranteed that you have many death sites other than the capital one.

On the Dominion side, there is opinion that your dominion strength shouldn't be excessive (more than 6 candles) in a MP game. You're usually hated and ganged up against by most people. But with a smaller dominions strength, you might have a larger chance to delay the inevitable. With a high dominions strength, you'll also have a very impressive number of units, most of which are *useless* undeads - another way to ask for an alliance to kill you if the world score is open for everybody to see.

But the balance between viable diplomatic scale and enough undeads is a hard one. That's why I always find Ashen Ermor difficult to play in a MP game.

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

Though the 4-ALL Immortal Pretender is tempting, if only because of all the great equipment you could create, I'm more for a Magic-3 scale with AE Ermor, and thus can't afford the 4-ALL Immortal.

I could have 4-ALL with the Grand Sage, but I don't want to have him die and lose ALL his magic paths. That would make me cry. Alot.

[ January 27, 2004, 02:50: Message edited by: undead dolphin hacker ]

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can design a immortal all-4 MAGIC-3 pretender.
choose master lich. lich/lich queen is ok if u dont want an extra death sphere.
have all scale -3 but magic +3, SP Ashen Empire.
dominions strength 8. not good enough,but not bad too.
all four,death 5. if you pick a lich/lich queen, death 4 here.
20pt castel.
19 points left.
That is what you want.

[ January 27, 2004, 03:17: Message edited by: void ]

Re: What do you recommend for Ashen Empire Scales and Domain ?
 

Actually if you take all the worst settings on scale and the default castle you can create pretenders with all-4 and a couple of 9's

Its a big trade off but for a nation with strong sacred units and if you try to stay at the edge of your dominion (in the dominion but not yet getting the worst affects) it can be a tactic. Especially for small-map/fast-games