How do I fight ermor?
 

I'm playing the inquisition people (mar-something). I started on one side of a continent, ermor started on the other, and we're both crushing the two unfortunates in the middle (btw, monkey in the middle really stinks in this game.)

I don't think I'll have too much trouble in battle; after all, I have great priests and should be able to banish the hordes. The problem is that my spies tell me his land is depopulated, which means it's going to be very hard to advance (no supplies).

Any suggestions? Oh, bonus question: if a province is at population zero, is there anyway for it to increase?

-Jeff

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Dominions I guide (still relevant):
How to Defeat Ermor

This is obligatory reading and answers most of your questions.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

I'll look at that. One thing I was thinking, and I'm wondering how well this will work, is building wolfpacks of assassins armed with the exploding amulet thingies (forget the name) and sending them after commanders.

-Jeff

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

This seems quite expensive, even if it has a good chance of killing multiple commanders - it will only be worthwile if you manage to send in an attack to possibly rout (actually, dissolve) the army once they have no commanders...

But, with Marignon, you have the best asset againt Ermor: excellent priests. Make large Groups of them, with some solid infantry as bodyguards (not necessarily as "guard commanders"), and banish the whole thing away.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Find a druid province or other area giving nature magic. Get to nature 3 preferably (nature 2 + Thistle Mace will do), and Construction 6. A Cauldron of Broth will feed 50 men from a single misc slot.
Repopulating is basically not going to happen unless you abuse Wishing for population in that province.
Medallion of Vengeance and all those assassins will be expensive; plus it's hard to assassinate a Dusk Elder because they'll summon undead like crazy, and in addition depending on how long the game is there may be Wraith Crowns which create more undead.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">An endless bag of wine is considerably cheaper than a cauldron of broth. It only costs 5 nature gems, and feeds 25 troops. Which lets you feed 100 troops for the same gem investment as a cauldron. Just put them on scouts that remain hidden with your armies.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Heh, well I was just schooled by Ermor. He hit me with 3 armies, all of which were the same size as my biggest. Worse yet, he marched underwater and then split on the coast, taking multiple provinces very quickly. I've since bLasted them, and the follow-on armies away, and beat up another necromatic pythian army too (I had pythia on the ropes when ermor attack), but I've lost some pythian provinces, and one of my provinces now has population zero.

I have plenty of priests, but now I have a huge upkeep for my size, and I have no idea how I'm going to expand when at least 50% of the world is depopulated.

So, assassin idea is off. I do have a nature province, so I'll save up 400 gold and put a temple+lab there to get a druid or two. The problem is that this is slow, and ermor is quick, quick, quick.

-Jeff

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

If you're not preaching along your border, you probably should. That might help fight the intruding dominion and reduce the risk of massive, essentially unreversible population loss. Another use for excess priests would be "banish/banish/banish/run away!" attacks just to attrit him a bit.
If it's a multiplayer game, a temporary alliance with Pythium might make sense. Presumably neither of you wants your populations completely gone.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">From zero, as far as I am aware, only random lucky events (people migrating in) can increase the population.

If you have a non-zero population, a growth scale would help, and I'm not sure whether spells such as "Gift of Nature's bounty" have a positive effect on population or not. But from a flat out depopulated province, only luck will help.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

The dominion was solid in my borders. At the edges, it was give and take, and in the Pythian provinces it was coming along (some to my side, some still pythian). Dominion wasn't really a problem. The problem was that when he attacked, he hit an outlying province on an island chain, then hit other provinces up the coast. By the time I tossed him off the coast and fought my way back down the islands, the Last province was completely depopulated.

I'm wonder if I had used the raven-something spell (ravens eat corpses and bring back gems) much earlier if that would have slowed his growth.

-Jeff

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Growth is, what, 0.3% per turn per point of Growth? Even if there's a 1000 people left rather than 0, well, that's not much compared to an Ashen Empire dominion that kills up to 50% population per turn depending on strength. It's wrecked.

You'd be better off with Luck +3 and praying that the random number generator blesses you with an immigration event, then waiting the eternity it'd take to get something back up. Basically the pop drop is a one-way trip unless that happens, or you're using a mod to dramatically boost Growth scale power.

Ravens might have helped; they eat corpses, which might be helpful if he used Carrion Reanimation (reanimates up to 100 corpses per cast) or stops to reanimate, or used his own Raven Feast to eke out a few more death gems (not that this normally yields much IIRC).

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

An Arcocephalian Priestess and a medium-sized phalanx with adequate flank support will butcher an Ermorian skeletal legion three times its size...

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

So can just about any heavy infantry group with an independent priest or two attached.

PvK

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

To clear up a few things below:

The Enormous Cauldron of Broth is actually construction 2, not 6 (based on the Magic Item Quick Reference). The Endless Bag of Wine is construction 4.

Some advantages of the Cauldron of Broth is you can get it quicker research-wise, and in some cases you need to use them. If you put 2 Endless Bags of Wine on one commander, the effect is not cumulative. In cases where your commanders are leading large armies, the Cauldron of Broth can become crucial to prevent starvation.

Another thing that helps supplies a little is any mage with some nature magic. Each point adds some to supply (+5 I think).

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which is why you use scouts with your winebags, as you are wasting a large number of nature gems if you use cauldrons.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which is why you give Endless Bags of Wine to scouts (1 per scout) rather than your battle commanders. This has the benefit that your battle commanders do not have a miscellaneous slot used up for food and the added benefit that the supply-generating items are never lost in battle as your scouts are stealthy troops that you can keep away from the fighting while still marching with the armies.

There are many good reasons for not having your commanders lug Cauldrons around when you can have scouts carrying bags of wine.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Hey all, thanks for the tips, especially about the scouts & winebags.

FWIW, I think it's obvious how to beat the undead in any given battle: pikes (eg solid inf) & priests, season to taste. The problem is that the undead can win wars simply by taking empty provinces and depopulating them, and at the same time there's little you can do to hurt them back.

It's a fun problem. In the meantime, I think I'll just keep them out of my single-player games. The solution in multiplayer is simple: always kill them first.

-Jeff

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Pikes may do for a while. You can't repel a Wailing Lady's wail (length 6, area 1, save or die!), however, and undead archers may attrit you via the decay effect, and IIRC Behemoths will ignore the repel as well due to having incredible morale. A set of Behemoths can breach a line fairly quickly.
You'd also want to patrol sufficiently to keep out the Harvesters and, say, Black Servants with Bane Venom Charms.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Repel works only if the unit being repelled has low morale, otherwise they just take the 1 damage and attack anyway. Repel is of little use against the undead.

[ March 22, 2004, 16:01: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Fine, not pikes, but I stand on the fact that once you have the hammer (priests) and an anvil (solid infantry), killing undead isn't too hard. The trick is dealing with many, many armies marching through your provinces depopulating as they go.

-Jeff

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Er, don't the hordes of undead have low HP? they may not lose their attacks, but the lost HP could pile up and let you kill them "for free"...

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Well sure, but even with low hp taking 1 damage per combat round isn't that big a deal. Basic undeads die quickly anyway, so the turnover rate in the front row of the horde will be pretty fast.

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

I think that, versus undead, I'd want to have something like Mechanical Men, Living Statues, etc up front -- something with good prot that won't rout or fatigue. The latter is useful due to the large numbers possible, while the former helps due to the not uncommon fear effects (Behemoths and Wailing Ladies cause fear; the latter is likely to be especially strong as they're unholy, and Dead Ermor is likely to pick at least four points of death...). In addition, I have far fewer qualms about risking friendly fire via flaming arrows when it's only constructs in my line instead of potentially expensive heavy infantry that I might not be able to replace very quickly or nearby.
If it's against Soul Gate, your front line is also risks paralysis and disease, and will need to swing more times to hit ethereal units barring something like a fire-9 blessing (or Weapons of Sharpness? Need to check. Caelian ice weapons also count as magic, ouch.)

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

I have found churning out Herald Lances to be a nice tactic vs Ermor. The fear removal does wonders, and having a brigade of solar-ray bLasters doesnt hurt either http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

Guys, the point is that it's easy to defeat the undead on the battlefield; the problem with the undead is that their sheer numbers allow them to take provinces and depopulate them quickly.

-Jeff

Re: How do I fight ermor?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...which is why several posters in this thread have suggested supply-related solutions, such as Cauldrons, Winebags, and Nature mages in general.