Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Isn't Ashen Empire or Soul Gate too strong?

They spawn for no fee in each province, each turn. Ermor player have all the money to build forts, temples, alchemy and so on.

Ermor troops don't cost any manteinance, so they're good for long games ...
Ermor troops don't need to eat, so they can with great armies were only few defenders can stand (PD is almost always weak)
Ermor troops don't suffer from fatigue.

Ermor don't need of Scales except Magic.
Turmoil 3 - don't need of gold cause provinces should be empty of people.
Sloth 3 - don't need production, and nor gold too.
Cold 3 - don't need supply or gold. Cold3 can enhance some undead cold halo.
Death 3 - Obvious.
Misfortune 3 - Most of bad events are population killing ... what Ermor needs.

Magic ... as it prefers.

So almost 1100 points to spend in: Castle, Pretender, Dominion and Magic ... mmm probably so on 800 points or more to spend in MAGIC for pretender!!!

To not to count when you conquer Ermor provinces they often are empty or little crowded, so meager income and resources from them.

Probably I'm forgotting something.

Does they need to be reviewed?

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Ermor's themes' great downside: A 50g indepedent commander can kill 10 or more of their troops in a battle.

All of Ermor's themes' troops are Undead. That is their weakness. There are any number of ways to exploit that weakness.

Most of their troops are also highly vulnerable to missile fire.

I don't really fear Ermor, unless they have a huge territorial advantage over me.

Bayushi Tasogare

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Soul Gate troops are "Ethereal". So there's little chance to be struck by common weapons.

Ashen Empire ... true are very weak but they're far more numerous than yours, usually.

Many spells and items have improved damage with undeads, or are only vs undeads ... but I believe they don't match the benefits of this nation.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Undead Ermor looks very powerful - and is in SP. AI doesn't handle undead threat well and other AI nations get destroyed rather quickly.
Things changes when you encounter some fanatic Priests in MP- say those of Pythium http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif !
Last game I've played my band of communicating-priest lay waste to a 500+ undead army. After the battle 3 of them were at top of HoF with 100-200 kills each http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif !
So undead are not that unbalanced.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Don't forget the Pretender with 800-900 magic points.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

There are several things that you must remember when dealing with the two undead themes of Ermor. The first is that they will have more troops than you. To overcome this, you must have some way of dealing with large quantities of undead with low magic resistance. This can be done by having an force of a dozen or so of the 50 gold, holy 2, independent priests. Make sure that you have a screen of high morale or unbreakable heavy troops in front of your priests to protect them.

The second thing is that you need some way to prevent your troops from starving. Nature magic is the solution here, with cauldrons of broth, endless wineskins, and summer swords. Wineskins can be built by any nature 1 mage, and should be put on scouts who will hide and just provide food for your troops.


The third thing is that you must be able to deal with the Ermorian pretender. This will likely be a Vampire Queen, as it is one of the most effective combat pretenders out there. banishment will not help you here, since a pretender will have lots of magic resistance. The way to win here is with magic. Don't just throw normal troops at it or they will all be lost on the various damage shields they have. Hopefully the pretender is not wearing an elemental armor, or your options become rather limited. If they are not immune to all elemental magic, then the best way to kill them is with armor negating spells like thunder strike, orb lightning, and incinerate. Lots of astral 2 mages set to cast paralysis can help if the SC (supercombatant) is has a magic resistance of 25 or lower, but above that your chances of success are extremely low. If the unit is immune to all elemental damage, then your best bet is to try and use death magic against it. Dust to dust, and wither bones are two spells that cause armor negating damage to undead and can be quite effective.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Your troops have a 75% chance that their weapons will not affect the ethereal troops. Of course, their weapons only have a 54% chance of effecting your troops if you have a magic resistance of 10 on average. Use the enchantment spell antimagic, and this becomes much lower. You also only need to hit their dispossed spirits once to kill them. Magic is extremely effective against soul gate's troops, since they all have no protection, and magical effects ignore etherealness. Blade wind, for example, is brutally effective.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

The biggest problem with Ermor is that nobody wants to attack them because:

1) You have to make a special anti-undead force that probably won't integrate all that well into an army to face more conventional opponents.

2) You need some way of supplying your troops since Ermors lands are pretty barren. This generally requires at least a Nature mage or two.

3) Your rewards for defeating Ermor are less than for defeating other nations. Provinces with no population produce no money. The 10 death gem castle is nice, though.

Ermor isn't overpowered. They have tons of units but they're all pretty weak. The problem is that nobody wants to attack them so they sometimes get a lot of time to build up. If you don't attack them early you could be in trouble.

[ April 10, 2004, 02:08: Message edited by: Yossar ]

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a theory. In practice, Ermor is by far the nation that gets attacked the earlier. So there must be something wrong in your reasoning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

The only thing I hate about 'em, personally (and I am not experienced enough to really comment on balance with much authority) is that they get massive free design points by taking negative scales that don't affect them and then make unusually strong pretenders with it.

I mean, the other things are annoying, too, about not getting much from their territories but the pop being dead is kind of innate flavor of the nation. Of course, I think it would have been nice if ignoring certain aspects of the game (morale, supply, population, upkeep, etc.) had been spread out among more nations (like a nation where all their troops are constructs and don't need supply, an R'lyeh theme where every baseline troop had the lobo advantage, etc.), I would hate to take away too much from one of the more original nations, if that makes any sense.

- Kel

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a theory. In practice, Ermor is by far the nation that gets attacked the earlier. So there must be something wrong in your reasoning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, nobody ever wants to attack them. It's just something that someone's gotta do that gets harder and more unappealing the longer you wait.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a theory. In practice, Ermor is by far the nation that gets attacked the earlier. So there must be something wrong in your reasoning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, nobody ever wants to attack them. It's just something that someone's gotta do that gets harder and more unappealing the longer you wait. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Agreed. Although Ermor are still very powerfull, especially in the hands of expereinced Ermor player (like Norfleet for example, who likes to combine it with massive clam-hoarding tactic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

What I dislike about them is not the fact that they are unbeatable (something that they clearly are not), but the fact that when you have Ermor in game more often than not all of his neigbors have to go after them, so the game deteriorate to "every nation vs Ermor" style until Ermor is dealed with, instead of offering 17x16=272 dfferent combinations of other nations figthing each other. For me it gets old very fast.

[ April 10, 2004, 04:27: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

So on if the real problem is an SC Pretender modify scales for Ermor ... so that Ermor won't gain any points from bad scales ...

Ermor shall have at least the same points of a commond pretender for making his own.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If Ermor was the only nation that couldn't gain points from bad scales, then every other nation which DOES gain points from bad scales would build a better pretender than Ermor, as well as having better troops that lack the vulnerabilities of Ermor's troops.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Personally, I think it's pretty well balanced as is. The only real reason to gang up on Ermor is to keep him in check. If not, all his provinces, which should eventually be your provinces, will be devoid of people. Nerfing the nations Pretenders wouldn't help, since the population would still die off.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Speaking of magic, Ermor gets mages with narrow magic (3D + 1R) and they can't recruit their mages as quickly as other nations can.

This gives Ermor slow research compared to most other nations and low gold income means Ermor has trouble hiring independant sages to help out.

Ermor needs a magically powerful pretender to compensate for the fact that they can't put as many mages in the field as other nations.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Ermor is not as strong as many would believe. Here's a breakdown of Ermor, from the perspective of an avid Ermor player:

Pros:
Receives many free troops and does not pay upkeep on them.
Defiles land, making it inhospitable to invaders - invaders will starve, or at very least, gain little for taking a depopulated province.
Does not require gold or resources to recruit troops.
Unaffected by negative scales and can spend many points on pretender and strong dominion.
Can have enormous quantities of troops.
Units do not eat - supply is never a problem - cannot starve if sieged.
Lack of gold economy combined with ubiquity of troops makes hit-and-run raiding attacks against Ermor largely meaningless.
Can besiege forts easily: Large numbers quickly tear down any defense.
Large numbers of troops spawning across empire makes fighting on multiple fronts easy and even enjoyable.
AE - Units are mindless and cannot be routed.
SG - Units are ethereal and difficult to hit normally
SG - difficult to besiege: Not mindless and can easily repair fortresses due to numbers.

Cons:
National mages are one-dimensional and not very flexible - Difficult to summon units other than more undead.
Lack of population gives poor gold/res income -Difficult to recruit independent mages, nearly impossible to recruit independent troops.
Units all share single weakness which can be specifically targetted by many spells.
Ermor cannot preach effectively: Ermorian priests are unable to preach, and recruited independent priests will lose a rank of priestly power and become unholy - ability to preach suffers accordingly.
Troops spawning in random places are difficult to gather.
AE - Units are exceptionally weak and easily killed; will dissolve without a fight if commanders are not present or slain
SG - Units suffer from ubiquitous 0 protection and are highly susceptible to magical damage.
Does not have any effective means of dealing with opposing undead that will not kill more of your own troops!

It is popularly believed that if Ermor is left uncontained, it will grow to be unstoppable. This is not inherently true, or at least more true, of Ermor: All nations, if left unchecked, will reach a point where stopping them becomes very difficult. Ermor's seemingly exponential army growth makes it seem very intimidating, but an Ermorian army is one-dimensional and can often be killed in enormous quantity without even trying: Many spells specifically target the Ermorian legion: Casting Purgatory can make your dominion nearly impenetrable as any Ermorian legion entering will take absolutely massive casualties for every turn spent in your dominion. Solar Brilliance can annihilate entire armies of undead in in a matter of rounds. Even conventional spells can be used to devastating effect: Ermor's troops are often so numerous that it is nearly impossible for even a one-eyed Abysian to fail to hit something, and they are weak enough that most spells will kill or or inflict great harm.

Assuming that you have researched the spells that will trivially allow you to dispatch even huge hordes of undead, and can employ them successfully, the only threat you face is trying to fend off attacks which can very easily come from all directions at once. However, due to the lack of variety in Ermor's magic, it is unlikely that any but a few attacks will be supported with anything other than death magic, which is very limited in what it will affect and often acts slowly.

The other threat you face is the Ermor pretender, who will likely be a very potent SC: However, if it tows chaff around, it will be subject to auto-routing when in enemy dominion, and since Ermor lacks the ability to effectively preach, especially by stealth, it has difficulty pushing dominion into areas that have strongly opposing enemy dominions: If your dominion is weak, however, you must shore it up with priests and temples, or Ermor's temple spread will quickly overwhelm yours and ruin your lands. Having many priests preaching out Ermor's dominion also has other collateral benefits on defense: Banish can erase huge tracts of undead, particularly Ashen Empire undead, with their far insuperior MR. Ermor's pretender is only really dangerous if you are fighting in Ermorian dominion, and killing it with one of many spells that work well against SCs (Drain Life, Petrify, etc.) can turn the tables if it attacks without support or loses all of its support.

In short, it is absolutely NOT necessary to form a massive coalition and turn the game into a gigantic anti-undead crusade: It is perfectly possible for most nations to take on an Ermor of relatively equal size unassisted...but it requires specific knowledge of how to best exploit Ermor's weaknesses: A straightforward, hamhanded tactic that works on the normal living races can fail disastrously against Ermor and leave you greatly weakened. Don't let yourself be goaded into a rash campaign: Act with patience and prudence, not a knee-jerk reaction of "Ermor must die!". Ermor, even well-developed, can be driven back by a methodical approach.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

...and that, ladies and gentlemen, must be the best summary of Ermor I've ever ever seen, lurking here.

Norfleet, why not go play something else with equal dedication and report likewise? I think it would be an excellent sequel! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Another thing I've been noticing about Ermor is that its gem income isn't all that impressive. It can find Death Gems easily enough, if they are out there. But it needs all the Death Gems it can get for summoning more leaders.

Beyond that, all you're going to get are the things your death 3, random 1 mages can find, and whatever you're willing to devote your pretender to searching for. Granted, your Pretender will be an excellent mage so it can probably find lots of magic sites, but that involves a lot of turns devoted to moving around and searching, when you could really use its help in fighting, researching, casting rituals, etc.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

A nation can be as powerful as they want and still not be unbalancing to Dominions2 as a whole. It can seem unfairly balanced in one game such as Ermor vs Ulm.

But as long as Marignon is a selectable nation, Ermor is not an automatic winner. Marignon doesnt have the problem of investing in more priests than they can use later. They almost cant avoid making lots of priests. And fire magic. For as powerful as Ermor seems, Marignon is an equal in exactly the right areas. But then, Marignon has trouble going against Ulm.

So balance is achieved. Not in nation against nation (to do that would require that all pieces be equal but just with different colors like a game of chess or risk). Ermor is a threat to Ulm, while Ulm can roll over Marignon, and Marignon can bLast Ermor (rock, paper, scissors). It gets deeper than that of course with 17 nations (and another on the way) but the basis is there. Any of the nations can seem out of balance against certain nations, but have another nations seem almost ready-built to counter their best tactics. Pros and Cons.

Oh yeah, and I agree. Norfleet, that is an excellent write-up on Ermor.

[ April 10, 2004, 13:27: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is the "new water nation" really a nation or is it "just" a new theme for Pangaea? Or are you talking about something else?

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is the "new water nation" really a nation or is it "just" a new theme for Pangaea? Or are you talking about something else? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If I remember correctly Kristoffer referred to it as a 3rd water nation. Ive modified my map selection criteria to include maps which have 3 equal-sized oceans in preparation. Although of course we have no idea how long it will be before it shows up.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A simpler solution would be to increase the cost of the undead themes (Living Ermor can't ignore bad scales), *if* they really are a problem. I don't think they are - AE/SG have large weaknesses to offset their strengths. Their main trick that's hard to counter is an undead supercombatant god, and it's possible that there should be more and/or better counters to undead supercombatant gods; but that isn't limited to dead Ermors although it may be most severe with them. (They would also be counters to undead supercombatant Wraith Centurions and Vampire Counts too, of course.) It's also very possible that the Vampire Queen and/or Lich Queen should cost more points - this would leave fewer points for their magical powers, even in the hands of an undead Ermor.

Anyway, undead Ermor can't ignore all bad scales: drain is very bad, misfortune is still bad although not as bad as for living nations. They pretty much rely on luck/magic to get a half decent gem income. They do benefit from cold (chill auras) and death (starve the living), and pretty much ignore turmoil and sloth, though.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think that the Lich Queen is okay the way she is, as she doesn't have any modifiers that make her much harder to kill in melee combat.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm very fond of Mictlan, too, but nobody's complaining Mictlan is overpowered, even though I find it to be every bit as potent as Ermor: Sun Priests with Jade Knives can very quickly demolish enemy dominion and replace it with your own.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Nice summary.

Not sure I agree with the conclusion that you don't need to deal with Ermor immediately (whether by allying or eliminating) but that's another story.

One thing. As someone referred to, another pro might be that they are all poor amphibians and can take indie water provinces early on without forging/ichythids/etc.

- Kel

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is true of Soul Gate. Ashen Empire does not have this strength in full: Censors are not amphibious (although they will happily spawn in provinces with underwater fortresses and immediately drown), being that they seem to be water-soluble. Archbishops are also incapable of entering the water. Ghouls, the only non-mindless AE Ermor unit, are not amphibious either, and must be left on land.

All this means that AE Ermor is extremely susceptible to R'lyeh undersea, because all the mindbLasts will strike the relatively weak mound kings, which, due to their less than stellar MR, will quickly die and leave the forces without commanders.

SG Ermor is better at this, as all SG troops and commanders are amphibious.

In all cases, their poor amphibiousness will give underwater priests lots of time to perform their priestings, and Ermor is unable to construct castles undersea, so will not be able to hold its undersea provinces effectively unless the pretender or a recruited Indy can cast Living Castle.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Ok, I just know that I see ermor in sea provinces earlier on where most other land nations aren't. I figured that was a pro http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

- Kel

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is the "new water nation" really a nation or is it "just" a new theme for Pangaea? Or are you talking about something else? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If I remember correctly Kristoffer referred to it as a 3rd water nation. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And if I remember correctly, even if it were "just a theme", it wouldn't be for Pangaea. I believe that Kristoffer had stated that its pre-national orgins were as an Atlantian theme...

[Indeed I do. To wit, the Kristoffer quote in question...]

[ April 10, 2004, 18:12: Message edited by: E. Albright ]

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Wow norfleet, you just summed up why I play ermor all the time. Incredible analysis.

I first tried ermor to try and learn the game, and havent been able to pick a different nation since:)

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">With the new way paralysis works I'm not sure that's still the case. I could be wrong but it seems a lot harder to kill stuff with mind bLast now.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mound kings only have 7 hitpoints when they are created, and a MR of 13, so it's not very hard for an Illithid force to deal with them. They only need to overcome the MR check 7 times to kill it as each mindbLast does 1 damage.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Paralysis of the Mound King is irrelevant: It doesn't matter if the mound king remains paralyzed or not: His threat value isn't because he can move around and fight. You want him dead because without him, all of the undead will become useless and automatically die.

Since the undead are mindless, all of your squidheads will concentrate their fire on the mound kings, which will likely be the primary Ermor commanders for the Ashen Empire underwater, as Archbishops and Censors are not aquatic, and Dusk Elders and Spectators are far too valuable to be squandered on such a mission, and certainly are not likely to be present in sufficient numbers to significantly alter this balance.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which brings up a question about the cradle game we're playing in. How on earth did my dominion go from positive to -9 in a particular province in one turn?

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What did you have as your dominion strength, and how many temples do you have? Was anybody preaching? I'm not sure how, exactly, dominion radiates outwards from temples, if the provinces around it also contain temples and every province for several hops is max dominion...and contains more temples. I have an absolute buttload of temples....it's possible that a dominion spread check into a neighboring province simply continues to ripple outwards if the neighboring provinces cannot hold more dominion: If your dominion is poorly reinforced and you do not have many temples (and my scouts sure don't see very many temples), your dominion may not be equal to the task of fighting off a shoving match.

And I do have a lot of temples. It's not like I have much else to spend my money on.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There were four seraphines preaching in an adjacent province, and a temple one over with dom strength 7, so it seemed really strange to me. i think that game's just about over anyways, since there's absolutely no gold anywhere on that map.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mound kings only have 7 hitpoints when they are created, and a MR of 13, so it's not very hard for an Illithid force to deal with them. They only need to overcome the MR check 7 times to kill it as each mindbLast does 1 damage. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So damage is the same? It seemed like Illithids were doing less damge now, but I have a bad memory so I could be totally wrong.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've only played the demo, but occasionally, the engine burps when it processes a turn - Once, playing Abyssa, I got a unholy-4 fire-3 devil commander off of a soul contract on the exact same turn one of my priest-4 fire-3 commanders died from a horror attacking him due to one of the soul contracts he was carrying; I only saw it happen once, but it happened.

Also, one option: It appears that pretenders, prophets, home provinces, and temples have a secondary dominion spread effect than just the area right around the pretender, prophet, home province, or temples - the "conVersion rate" - it appears to act by adding dominion, at random, to anything currently in your dominion or next to your dominion that is not at your maximum dominion. If this is so, late game, if two or more players have lots of temples and such, and a mostly peaked dominion inside their own areas of control, it could be possible that 18-19 such conVersion points could hit one border province on a single turn. That is, if the conVersion rates work like I suspect they do, which is no sure thing.

It might be a bug, might not.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Preaching in an adjacent province doesn't spread dominion, because preaching only raises dominion in the current province....and if your dominion strength is at least 7, Seraphines, even preaching at a temple couldn't push you over to max dominion and result in spillover anyway.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Going from positive to -9 is a rather sudden and dramatic shift, 'tis true. On the other hand, a lone temple alone may not be sufficient to stop a massed array of temples feeding dominion outwards.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Cradle does seem to be a little lacking in pure farmlands and "large" provinces. Perhaps the next time we try this map, it should be done with "rich" world option to avoid the "no gold" effect. At least there's lots of gems: Have you tried converting gems to gold by alchemy? That's where most gold I use is from.

[ April 11, 2004, 00:12: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They will prevent enemy dominion from spreading through the province they are in however. There is also some chance that even a dominion that is not at the maximum in a province will spread, which is seen most commonly in the very beginning turns.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't particularly like how the rich setting also doubles resources, so I was thinking that I would just mod the amount of gold a given population produces to double gold income only.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have been, but Caelum has a particularly hard time finding both fire and earth gems.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is true, but the chance of a temple check attacking a neighboring province appears to be independent of the strength of dominion in the current province, except for the case where the current province is at maximum dominion strength: Then the temple has no choice BUT to attack a neighboring province.

The interesting question is how a temple check propagates out beyond the immediately neighboring province, as temples are clearly capable of spreading dominion further than a neighboring province: Perhaps there's a chance that a temple check which attacks a neighboring province instead bounces and attacks a neighbor of that neighbor: Obviously, this may be forced if the temple's neighbors are also all at full dominion, and perhaps contain temples of their own: If this is what happens, and the nation is jampacked with many temples and is at max dominion in most provinces, the dominion spread may be forced outwards like a giant tidal wave, which WOULD very much account for the overwhelming force with which it overran your own dominion, since the above profile fits my empire.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Can that be done in a .map file? If it requires a full mod, the Cradle map may be fundamentally unfavorable towards gold-dependent races.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have been, but Caelum has a particularly hard time finding both fire and earth gems. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Caelum is also a water nation, with cheap national water mages. High Seraphs can easily roll a random in Astral, which can then jumpstart the process. Surely you can afford to simply use Acashic Record to search for those necessary fire and earth gems, since Gnome Lore and Augury are not castable by basic national mages?

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a mod only change.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">To get a high seraph to astral 3 takes a good 75 pearls, and then you are going to be spending a lot more pearls to search provinces that have been almost totally searched anyways. You're really better off just sending around a search team of two high seraphs of fire 1 and earth 1.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">75 pearls? No way. It takes 40 pearls: Take an S1 High Seraph, empower to Astral-2 at the cost of 30 pearls, and forge a Starshine. You can use him for the purpose of scanning any new provinces you take for a full search. If you can take F or E High Seraph and give him a booster, you can then easily do probings for Fire and Earth on your searched provinces as well. If the terrain around you is so apparently poor in gold, then it will be rich in resources and gems, because mountains and forests are higher-resource provinces, and wastes, swamps, mountains, and forests again are also richer in magical sites: Acashic Record is very much to your benefit on such targets.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Bah. I need to pay more attention to what I'm saying.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except of course when you've already completely searched for every other type of site (except blood).

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You've missed their major advantage, which is that they are still balanced for the Dominions 1 economy, whereas every other nation now has half the gold production available.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I believe that that statement is quite literally true. Ermor has absolutely no limitations on the maximum number of troops it can support, and pays no upkeep on its mages whatsoever. That alone is an incredibly massive advantage. Every other nation requires high population in many provinces to keep their troops and mage numbers high, and population only drops over time.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is the major problem with them. Ermor has absolutely no need for population, so once they have captured a province it becomes useless to anyone else within a few turns.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think that this is poor advice. Once ghost riders comes into play, which tends to be before turn 40, you basically have no chance against an Ermorian player. This spell makes building fortreses necessary in every province with a temple, which drains gold reserves incredibly quickly.

Both population killing Ermorian themes should probably cost 200 points just to match the other reanimating themes that exist.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Both population killing Ermorian themes should probably cost 200 points just to match the other reanimating themes that exist.

You mean Desert Tombs? I though the consensus was that DT is too expensive, and quite weak compared to, for example, base C'tis.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That comparison might be valid if Ermor had to pay upkeep on its mages and troops.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

No upkeep, sure. But no way to recruit them either. Ermor is constantly short on death gems, so whether or not needing to/being able to to summon mages and priest is an advantage isn't so clear.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't happen to have Dominions 1, so I have no idea what you're talking about. Besides, it is irrelevant: Ermor will always have a more ridiculously huge number of troops than a living nation: Undoing Ermor's troops cannot be accomplished by hamhandedly throwing more troops at it, and if use the correct tools for the job, losing ANY troops in a clash of conventional armies is completely optional.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Incorrect: There is a maximum number of troops that Ermor (or any nation) is allowed to have, after which Ermor will not be able to receive any more troops, and any attempts to summon better troops risks failure due to this limit.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is certainly an advantage, but I don't see it as overwhelming: Other nations are perfectly capable of switching to summoned, no-upkeep mages as well.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think that this is poor advice. Once ghost riders comes into play, which tends to be before turn 40, you basically have no chance against an Ermorian player. This spell makes building fortreses necessary in every province with a temple, which drains gold reserves incredibly quickly.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Impulsive, poorly considered, knee-jerk attacks are invariably the cause of total army loss. An impulsive, badly planned rush with poor strategic support will leave you in a very awkward position if it fails horribly.

I see you've caught onto my remote temple burning strategy. Building fortresses in every province with a temple, this is basically necessary anyway: Ghost Riders is not the only remote-raiding spell, and fliers, or flying SCs, can easily maraud completely unchecked, leaving you to try to guess their next move in a giant, extremely aggravating, whack-a-mole, unless you build forts. Province defense can stop very lightweight attacks, but is generally worthless against a human player, and there is really no point to using it other than to run off scouts. Fortresses, no matter how lousy, however, do something that NO amount of PD can do: No matter HOW large the attacking army is, you will always buy yourself a minimum of one turn to respond. Furthermore, your attacker is unable to pillage the province, and the amount of savaging he can conduct merely by raising taxes to 200 is far more limited. Lastly, if your attacker is unable to breach the wall, he can't kill your army: Forts are particularly effective against lone SCs, because SCs tend to be exceedingly poor at sieging even the weakest forts, and will be forced to either bring or request backup, give up, or camp out in front of the gates until the defender can muster a suitable response and run him off.

It should also be noted that Ermor is not even the only nation capable of using remote summons, including Ghost Riders. I regularly employ the use of Ghost Riders for temple burnings as living nations as well. Forts are mandatory, and are by far a better long-term investment than troops that invariably die ineffectually, as I tend to see them do often: After all, if you can't defend your land and prevent the enemy from taking it, all you have really accomplished is clearing the indies out at your own expense so that your enemy can use the land. This is stupid: If you can't hold onto it, it's not yours, and you're just conquering it for the enemy.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">CW Pan is a zero-point reanimating theme. DT C'tis costs 200, an amount many believe is far overpriced, and only seems to warrant any cost at all because it (allegedly) lacks the killer dominion that will render your lands devoid of income, and thus permits the simultaneous use of living troops, removing the one-dimensional limitation of other reanimation themes.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">More like a 160 point theme. 200 point before the patch. Being forced to take growth in a death theme is pretty useless.

[ April 11, 2004, 08:02: Message edited by: Yossar ]