Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

First, I am getting whipped badly by the EASY AI...I can seem to handle the independents ok, but when I run up against another AI player, WHUMP!

I've played mostly Marignon, used gems, but have not given my heros alot of orders...is that the key? Any general suggestions?

Secondly, I've seen some cases where enemy troops will just appear next to my province, and them not control any other territory around...usually Caleum...also when I tried Ermor, suddenly at the beginning of a turn, I see there was a battle half way across the map from my nearest unit...go take a look, and I have many undead, and 4 commanders! Have no idea where they came from, but appears similar to the Caleum scenario...

Third and Lastly, Ermor...I played with the Soul Gate option...I sort of understand Ermor kills off the non-undead population of the territory, and I see a quantity of corpses appear...
How exactly does this work? Does killing off the population create the corpses, or battles in that or other provences? I know I need "priests" to raise dispossed spirits, shadows and apparitions, but how many corpses do each of these take? What if I run out in a province, can they return? Since I can't recruit like normal, what are fortresses good for, other than extra prodection in a province? Can I get any other non-hero undead units thru priests, or do I get these only thru spell casting?

Sorry this is so long, but so many questions....

Thanks for the help...

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Caelum is a noteworthy offender for using "Call of the Winds", a remote summoning spell that magically summons a flock of Black Hawks. The Black Hawks are weak and can easily be killed by a modest level of PD, but they can strike anywhere, at any time.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ashen Empire and Soul Gate Ermor automatically spawns commanders and undead for your use. They simply grow out of the woodwork at random places. Also, provincial defense generates units on a temporary basis to defend the province, but even a level of 20 should only have produced 2 free commanders. Your two additional commanders, probably Mound Kings for AE, or Shadow Tributes for SG, probably just spawned there that turn.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dead Ermor(Ashen Empire/Soul Gate) is blessed(or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with something called "killer dominion": The Dominion, independently of the death/growth scale of the province, will slaughter a percentage of the affected population every turn. Many of them will become unburied corpses, until some are buried by the surviving population, or eaten by buzzards.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Soul Gate does not require any unburied corpses. Ashen Empire uses unburied corpses to raise Soulless, but Soul Gate does not need them. Unburied corpses are produced by death of population(from your dominion, or by you pillaging the province), or from battle casualties.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No. The population killed by pillaging, and your dominion, once entirely eliminated, will never return, not even if the province falls into the hands of somebody who replaces your dominion with a growth scale. The people you kill will stay dead....forever!

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They provide defense and serve as obstacles to any invasion: They'll defend against evaporating summons like Ghost Riders, which do not stick around to siege the province. They also cause your national Undead, the Legionnaires and Velites, to spawn there.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No. Your priests do not provide you with anything other than undead. You can, if you conquer independent provinces, recruit their troops, but an Ermorian fortress provides no admin percentage, and you will quickly kill all of your population, leaving you with no resources or gold to produce much other than mages, which demand very low resources to produce.

Pillage provinces for gold! Kill all the people! Jack up taxes to 200! Remember, the undead always pay their bills in full.

And above all else, remember my sig!

[ March 17, 2004, 23:29: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, your not alone in your AI trodden nightmare. Don't despair you'll fix your self up eventually, just practice.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

OK, thanks for the info and encouragement!

So, for Ermor, my priests don't create the spirits/apparations, etc? There's a command to "call spirits", which give options for spirits, apparations, etc...this does not work?

If it does, does it take corpses, or dispossessed spirits to make apparations and shadows? How many per?

One thing I have not been doing is upping my province defense...you say the higher, the more commanders I will get (outside of a battle)? I know defense give you extra troops in a battle and helps detect spies....

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

You get 1 commander for any province defense, with an increasing number of troops up to 20, when you get a second commander, and any points above 20 will give you some additional special troops. Which troops you get for which nation is in the manual near the front IIRC.

As a note - if you are playing Ermor, Marignon is your worst enemy. For beginner games you could try playing without them being in the game.

As far as I know, soul gate priests don't require any corpses to use their summoning abilities. Just set them to summon and they will happily remain cranking them out.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They work in addition to the ones you get for free. Priests can create MORE, but you do not need ANY priests to get SOME, and this SOME can already be an awful lot.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Neither. Soul Gate Ermor's troops appear out of nowhere. They have no prerequisites for summoning, beyond having a strong enough unholy priest: Unholy Priests can create them through "Call Spirits", and in areas where your dominion is strong, more will come for free.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You receive a commander automatically when you purchase a single point of PD. You will get a SECOND commander at 20 points. At 10 points, stealthy units may be automatically detected by the PD. Above 20 points, only more units, generally of insuperior quality to the ones you got for the first 20, are gained. This is true for all nations.

Ermor, however, has crap for PD. I only purchase 1 point, to gain a free commander to lead whatever rabble has spawned there.

[ March 18, 2004, 00:09: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

OK, I'll fire it up and give it another whirl...

or hurl, depending upon how badly I play... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

One additional question...defense reduces your income in the province, correct? Does it also reduce resources?

Also, any walkthroughs for specific nations? Ermor, etc? All the nations I have played play very differently, which is a GREAT thing!

Thanks a bunch guys, you are really helpful!!!

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

One thing I'm surprised Norfleet fumbled the response for, considering he's an ermor fanatic:

Ermor will, at apparantly random times, have 3-4 Ermor Cultists appear in a random enemy controlled province along with a number of ghouls and attack that province. This is entirely out of your control, but if they win the fight you keep the province.

That's what you saw when you had the battle halfway across the world.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The condition that causes Norfleet to forget things at times is called "senility", to which he sometimes claims to have. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Personally, I think he's more polite than he would have us believe and prefers not to play the role of being the ultimate Sage of Death. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ March 18, 2004, 00:25: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">AKA The Burden Of Time ?
And here I thought Ermor was immune.

- Kel

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Undead are immune, yes. However, I don't get to be a Wight Mage until somebody kills me, because Twiceborn won't kick in until then.

[ March 18, 2004, 01:10: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">AKA The Burden Of Time ?
And here I thought Ermor was immune.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ermor is, Ermor's puppetmaster is not. heh

I, OTOH, suffer from the not-quite-related malady known as the Burden of Too Much Time On My Hands. At times.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nope. PD costs nothing beyond what you pay for it. There's no hidden drawback, no upkeep cost, and no reduction of income or resources.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think Dominionsx.com and Sunray's site may have data dating back to Dominions 1. While some of the information is no longer current, the general principles may still apply. Most people are obsessed with killing Ermor rather than being Ermor, though, because Ermor is just so different from everyone else. Nobody likes the guy who's different.

And I don't think I've ever seen an Ermorian cultist attack before. Maybe my choice in scales prevents it from happening.

[ March 18, 2004, 01:43: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Have I gained a title? I wasn't aware I ever *WAS* the ultimate Sage of Death here....

I kinda don't want to end up being pigeonholed into this role, in the way Argitoth has been pigeonholed into being the authority on all things C'tissian....

I do play other nations, you know!

[ March 18, 2004, 01:47: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It happens quite a bit with luck +3. They are generally pretty ineffectual though. Not nearly as entertaining as the ghost ship attacks 8)

By the way, one thing I noticed when playing ermor with luck +3 ( which I originally chose solely to avoid having my temples continually falling apart ) was that a lot of the resource or income bonus specials that appeared through random events continuted to function to full effect even when the province they were in was population 0, and it actually had a pretty significant effect on my gold income.

Not sure if that is a bug or if it is, if it has been fixed in the Last 2 patches though.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Neither have I, and I've played full Ashen and SG games several times in SP.

Of course, given how it appears in some other nation's province, you'd expect their scales to dictate it...

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They still function, yes. In fact, it gets even better as Ermor: You can jack up your tax rates to 200, which WOULD produce a lot of unrest and cause people to complain incessantly, if it weren't for the fact that they are all dead now, and the only inhabits are the undead.

And the undead always pay their bills in full.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Neither have I, and I've played full Ashen and SG games several times in SP.

Of course, given how it appears in some other nation's province, you'd expect their scales to dictate it... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I almost never see it happen more than once in a game, and usually I don't see it happen until like turn 60+, so if you play short games you might well never see it. I have no clue if scales have any effect on it, since it doesn't display as an event in the turn Messages.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I play hideously long games, so if that's the cause, I should be seeing it. It must be extremely rare, or triggered by a combination of scales and dominionary influence in ways that generally don't occur.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm, I think it's tied to the death and misfortune scales, as I have had it occur around turn ten with Black Forest Ulm.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

So the VICTIM has to be Death and Misfortune, and Ermor has to exist in the game.

That would explain why I rarely see it: I don't play Ermor much in SP, it's not terribly challenging, and few people in MP will pick both Death and Misfortune.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Neither have I, and I've played full Ashen and SG games several times in SP.

Of course, given how it appears in some other nation's province, you'd expect their scales to dictate it... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I almost never see it happen more than once in a game, and usually I don't see it happen until like turn 60+, so if you play short games you might well never see it. I have no clue if scales have any effect on it, since it doesn't display as an event in the turn Messages. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I saw it 3-4 times before turn 50 in my current ...Ermor game, where I have Luck3 (thanks to Ermor insane scales ! So it happened to *my* advantage http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
But each time those crappy cultists get wiped out and never captured a province ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, go figure. I think this is a perfect example of getting what you pay for. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

I've seen the Cultists show up several times in my only ermor SP game (fun at first, but then it became micro management hell and far too easy).

Howevr, they showed up in my own provinces though - or am I confusing something here?

And talking about Ermor: what is a good way to push my Dominion out beyond my own realm? Building temples doesn't seem to help much since the AI tend to build one on every province...

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, when they show up in your provinces it is a (un)natural result of having high dominion. If they show up in another nation's province then it's a result of thier bad random event.

Re: Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..
 

I just had a bunch of fanatics appear in one of my games. Im playing Marignon and they just appeared, and took, a province right next to Ermors capital. Suddenly I own a province right next to Ermor and have 4 priest commanders with blessed troops. I didnt see the original message, just the combat. So I figure like other events the original message went to the original owner of the province.

I also had a province suddenly given to me when I was playing as Pangaea in a game. Im hoping that there is some rare event which does this for every nation equally.