Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

I've yet to play as Ermor of any type, so I thought I'd try out the Soul Gate flavor. (Single player).

Since I'm completely unfamiliar with SG Ermor, I'm hoping for some tips to help me get started off right. (My plan is to play the Cradle map, with 7-8 impossible AIs, rich world, 75% sites, indeps 8)

- What's a good choice for a good SC pretender? I'm thinking about taking the Ghost King but am open to other suggestions

- What scales to take? Can I max out all the scales to -3 except Magic? Or would it be wise to take some order or luck or something? Is 6 a reasonable starting dominion for SG Ermor?

- What magic paths are useful/necessary? Is taking more than 5 Death useful, presuming I can eventually get to 7+ with items?

- I know that you can't recruit units with SG Ermor, and they just show up. Does a higher dominion provide more units and/or better units?
Do commanders also appear, or do they all have to be summoned?

- Any good tips on how to start out the game? (Ie: what to do, what to summon the first few turns)

Thanks!

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

If you want to get a feel for Ermor, you might want to try Ashen Empire first - it's easier to handle and better against the AI imo.

Dominion is very important, so build temples. It determines how many units spawn in each province. To get the best units to spawn, you need castles/temples/labs.

I would not suggest taking minus Luck - it's a pain to lose temples to random events, especially since you don't get a huge income base. Research is tough to get going - some sages early on can really help and make some skulls (+9 research).

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I'm not that good at the game, but when I want a 'low-upkeep' game, I play SG Ermor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sounds good to me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">With the VQ's removal, I think the PoD would be the best choice. Ghost King is probably right up there too, especially if you plan on taking a lot of magic.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Luck-3 is your friend. You really don't want Misfortune. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif And I always take Dominion of 10 with Ermor. I don't know if that's the smart move or not, but see below.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">5 sounds fine. With a Skullface and the Scepter, you can get to 9. Oh, there's also the book, so 10. IIRC, one of the best reasons to have a sky-high Death magic is Summoning Ghosts (Conjuration-6).

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IME, higher dominion improves both quantity and quality of troops. One reason to take a 10 Dominion. As far as commanders, you summon most of them. The nice thing is that you can get Shadow Tribunes (your low-level Unholy priest) randomly in provinces that have Temples (I think; I'm not sure about Temple or not). I've also heard you can get more Wraith Centurions randomly.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, what I generally do is make my starting Wraith Centurion my prophet. That more or less makes him extremely powerful, and _almost_ a SC himself (18 Prot Ethereal Immortal). First thing I'd do with your Pretender is Summon a Spectator. It's a DD mage for 12 gems. While not as versatile as a Dusk Elder (DDD? for 20), they can summon themselves, and under a Magic-3 scale, they definitely research faster. Under a Rich setting, you get 15 gems a turn. This coincidentally equals 1 Spectator + 1 Dark Knowledge a turn.

As far as what to research, if you have a SC Pretender, you probably want to research the schools for his buffing magic. Otherwise, Conjuration is probably the way to go.

Now, IF you plan on going the Conjuration route, you may want to summon Dusk Elders instead of Spectators. Dusk Elders can naturally summon Spectres (which are better researchers than the Spectators for less cost), and with a single booster can cast Ghost Riders.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I hope this helps. If it doesn't, feel free to ream me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Scott

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

Scales: I would take +3 magic, but would be reluctant to take misfortune. Do take 3 death, sloth and turmoil; you'll lose your population anyway, and even if you had the production to recruit indies you'd have trouble paying the maintenance (even with order-3; taxpayers don't count once they're dead).

Pretender magic: I would aim for a rainbow-ish pretender (2, pref. 3, in most of the magic paths, ignoring blood, and minimum of 5 in death). Above 5 death isn't that important compared to, say, having a good dominion strength (you won't be able to afford many temples quickly, but it affects your undead auto-reanimation) and probably a good castle (one with towers, for instance).

I would largely ignore blood magic on the pretender as you won't be able to make good use of, say, a Mount Chaining, even if you found one. Most of the blood sites you'll find will cause unrest and let you recruit weak indies, if you had the money, which you won't. If you want to prioritize, I'd put Earth-3 fairly high on the list of wants, for the reasonably common Firbolg Fortress (saves you considerable money), Fire-2/3 for alchemy reasons... and would not use astral unless it were at least 4 and pref. 5 min with intent to have starshine cap and somebody else toting a Banner of the Northern Star.


BTW, unlike Ashen Empire, you auto-generate unholy priests (weak ones, but priests). Your highest-end summonable unholy priests are very, very expensive but immortal and have better stats than their Ashen counterparts. You will have no cavalry unless you explicitly summon Pale Riders. You will have far fewer sacred units. Your troops will have trouble against high-MR troops (phantasmal weapons are resistable) and will be mauled by flaming arrows (magic weapon ignores ethereal) or even Blade Wind (spells ignore ethereal), as your troops have low prot. Be careful.

Oh, and death is not too hard to boost madly if you research Construction and Conjuration. Construction gets you the +1-death staff and helm, as well as a unique +3 sceptre (!). Helm/sceptre = +4. If you can build the unique blood/death tome, that's another +1. Conjuration gets you a demilich, which is a death-4 chassis, and Dusk Elders are d3/?1.. Yowch. D7 + Conj-9 gets you Tartarians, although it's hard to exploit them without strong nature magic.

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

I'm thinking about startig an Ermor game (SP) too, but I've trouble distinguishing between priests and mages. Could a kind soul tell me which units are mages and which are priests in SG and AE? Thanks in advance.

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

Actually Demilich's are in the Enchantment School. Though you can get a D3 Wraith Lord or Mound Fiend in the Conjuration Path.

Edit:

Mages: Dusk Elder (3D?), Spectator (2D)

Priests: Shadow Tribune, Wraith Senator, Wraith Consul, Acolyte, Bishop, Arch-Bishop

[ June 11, 2004, 16:10: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

Thnaks everybody for all the information/advice!

I created a test game and played some turns and have a few more questions:

1 - It seems the unholy priests are unable to preach. So you're left with just temples, prophet & pretender to boost your dominion? Does this prove to be a big liability?

2 - My home province only started with ~7K pop - is this a map setup, or something related to SG Ermor?

3 - Is it worth pillaging your provinces to try to eek a bit more money out of them before all the pop dies? Or summon apparitions at 100 pop(!) apiece? Or is it better to try to prolong the pop survival to get continued tax income?

4 - I notice that my home province has some gold income despite having no population in the province. And the Ermorian castle is 0-admin,so there shouldn't be any income from surrounding provinces. On my most recent turn the 70 income dropped to 66, and I'm puzzled by that also. I built another castle to see if they all do this, but it does not have any income. I assume this is some sort of home-province bonus?

5 - If my domain spread out into indy provinces, they should start to die off. If I wait long enough, will this serve to starve out the indy troops and eventually kill them off?

6 - I like using mercs a lot, but the gold situation seems really tight... Are using mercs a bad idea for ermor?

7 - A rabble of troops gathers in all provinces. Actually getting those troops to where they're needed seems rather micromanagement intensive. Do people tend to keep circulating leaders to constantly gather up these forces, or is it more typical to wait unti there is a large horde waiting before sending a commander over to collect them?

Thanks everyone!

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

The other reason to ignore blood as a dead Ermor is, of course, that you need population to hunt blood slaves. Demons want *living* sacrifices.

I don't know if this was mentioned before, but along with death, sloth, and turmoil 3, take cold 3. Some undead, including some of your summoned commanders, have a chill aura; all (IIRC) are cold immune (while most living troops take extra fatigue in extreme temperatures). This gives you plenty of points for luck and magic, which combine very well to give you extra gems often. This is important because you will have relatively few mages.

Beware of priests. SG needs a magic scale to keep their spectral weapons from being resisted too much and compensate for lack of mages, but that also makes them more vulnerable to banishment. Although spectral legionnaires have higer MR than Ashen Empire's junk troops, losing them hurts more. It might not hurt to spend a few gems on banish-bait (they will tend to go for the closest and/or lowest-MR undead), or better yet, get some flyers and form a priest extermination squad.

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, this is a significant liability for Ermor: You have no real ability to spread your dominion beyond taking a strong dominion, and spamming temples: The dominion spread of your pretender and prophet cannot be considered to be significant beyond a localized basis: At best, they can temporarily disturb an equilibrium situation.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dead Ermor receives less starting population than other nations. SG gets slightly more than AE.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Jack taxes up to 200, loot, pillage, and burninate. That's what I always do. If you're having dominion control issues and have taken some rich provinces which persist in remaining outside your dominion, it doesn't hurt to farm them and perhaps rake in a bit of blood if you get an get one of your D3B elders there, but don't count on this occurring, and definitely attempt to rectify the problem, so you can go back to looting, pillaging, and burninating.

*DO*, however, greatly value the provinces with gold mine sites: Pillage them down to 0 population so you don't have to deal with the whiny peasants, then crank the taxes up to 200. This will double your income....because the undead always pay their bills in full.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't think that's your provincial income, but your entire nation's income. You may have misread the display. It is still possible for Ermor have to income even under 0 population, though: It's possible that you received a lucky gold mine that will now yield income: Always crank taxes on these puppies up to 200, so they'll yield double the income. The undead always pay their bills in full.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is either you misreading the upper display, or receiving free gold sites in your home province as a result of luck scale.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I've never seen this happen, but I rarely care to wait that along, either.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Using mercs is great for Ermor: Mercs demand no upkeep and offer properties that your one-dimensional undead horde doesn't, such the ability to actually consistently hit and kill targets of decent MR. They're even better if the other players in the game have neglected them, causing their price to fall.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">For SG Ermor, a Shadow Tribune will eventually spawn in the province sooner or later: He's capable of commanding 70 undeads and is generally what I use to collect the local rabble. Otherwise, they can be collected by any passing commander on the way to the front: Rarely do I need to specifically circulate a commander just to harvest the horde, although sometimes too many Tribunes spawn in one province, and I boot them into a nearby province that is commanderless to collect the horde. Other times I just leave them to raise shadows, or spirits if there are still corpses. Or burninate the countryside.

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

I'm not an Ermor expert (nor expert in general) but in my experience:

1. Yes, no preaching. Even holy priests you recruit are going to be unholy (unholy level= holy-1). It's not a liability in SP, but you have to be more careful, and protect your temples better than usual. Surpressing enemy dominions is a bigger obstacle than maintaining your own.

2. It's always like that with dead Ermor themes, IIRC.

3. Yes, if they are in your dominion pillage to squeeze out more gold for the temples while you can. One good application of implementor axe here. If you don't have dominion in the province, if it has high income/population, and if you don't need to devastate it for strategical purposes, you can leave it for the time being. This is what I usually do with enemy capitals for a few turns. Btw, you can also crank up the taxes if you want the population to be gone quicker, and also to squeeze out a bit more money in the short term (or get rid of those annoying Last 10 people in it).

4. Hmm, I wouldn't know about that.

5. Yes. Cast Burden of time to speed up the process.

6. Yes. But with free summons, it's not too terrible of a loss. You can still use them at start when the supply issue is not too bad if you can afford them.

7. It depends on the situation. It also depends on the luck of getting free autosummoned commanders. You should usually play aggressive, so replenishing armies is important, and whatever suits the current situation better (many small armies coming all the time or few large ones at greater intervals) works. You'll more often run into problems of not having enough commanders to pick all of them up (like if you wait too long). And yes, it's micro-intensive, but it's hard to resist not using all those free troops.

Hope this helps a bit.

Cheers,

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

In my experience, Ashen Ermor's dominion will kill a province's population, but has little or no effect on the Independent troops that are stationed there. In one game as AE, I had some sea provinces next to my capital that I left alone for a good long time. Mostly because I didn't feel like fighting a big army of Tritons when I had easier and more valueable targets to hit, but I also started to wonder if the army would die off when my dominion got high enough.

It never happened. By turn 40 or so my dominion was at 9 or 10 and the entire population of the province was dead, but the army stationed there appeared to me to be just as big as ever. It makes some sense, really, from a game balance perspective. If Ermor's killing dominion effect worked on troops, then how could anyone ever fight a war against Ermor? Any time you sent troops into Ermor's territory they'd start dropping dead.

I would assume that Soul Gate's dominion works the same as AE's in this respect.

[ June 12, 2004, 17:00: Message edited by: Vynd ]

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

Hmm, I haven't played Ermor for a few months now, but I seem to remember that the indies will start to starve once you kill off the population, and therefore get diseased as they run out of supplies. But maybe I'm just remebering wrong (as in, remebering cases where I already cast BoT or a province with a disease-causing site).

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, the theory is that while Ermor's killer dominion doesn't work on TROOPS, it *DOES* destroy all of the population, and thus, the supplies: So troops *DO* start dropping dead of starvation, if left there long enough.

However, it does not appear that indies ever starve, no matter what the conditions are, something that is readily apparent on Indy-9.

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't think that's your provincial income, but your entire nation's income. You may have misread the display. It is still possible for Ermor have to income even under 0 population, though: It's possible that you received a lucky gold mine that will now yield income: Always crank taxes on these puppies up to 200, so they'll yield double the income. The undead always pay their bills in full.

Quote:

I built another castle to see if they all do this, but it does not have any income. I assume this is some sort of home-province bonus?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is either you misreading the upper display, or receiving free gold sites in your home province as a result of luck scale.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I definitely wasn't misreading the display. I'm aware of both income values and know the difference.

I experimented further and found:
- Adjusting the tax rate to 200 doubled the province income to 135.
- I sped to get to Acashic Record, but no extra, secret gold sites showed up in my home province when I searched with it.

Then I started a new game, same map (Cradle), but not choosing the "rich" option, and discovered:
- On the non-rich map setting, SG Ermor got 10 death gem income from the home province, and 200 starting gold.
- On the "rich" map setting, SG Ermor got 15 Death gems starting income from the home province, 600 starting gold, and apparently an steady non-pop-related gold income in the home province.
- I then checked Pangaea on the same map, rich setting, and it did not get extra gem income. (I didn't check the starting gold or try to figure out if there was extra non-pop gold income).

Very interesting - I had no idea that the "rich" game option would affect things like that - I assumed it only doubled the standard province gold/resources income and wouldn't touch things like starting gem income or starting gold amount.

Anyway, thanks everyone for all the great tips and info!

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

Maybe Ermor gets the same bonus to gem sites that other nations do to income. After all, Ermor's economy is all gems, so giving them some bonus to gem income in rich world is only fair.

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

If you were playing a rich world, you may have received a random gold mine as a lucky random event: Ermor tends to have luck, and you probably did also. That would explain the province income, as Ermor's home province does not naturally receive income.

You also should never bother searching your home province in a standard game: You will never find anything. Additional sites gained in your home province are created by random events, and do not previously exist to be searched for.

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, in that test game, the scales were +3 order, -3 luck, with the game set to rare events. For sure there was no gold/silver mine in the province.

I created another new game to test things further, and there was no bonus income this time, until some lucky event "permanently increased gold revenue by 50". It wasn't a gold mine though - maybe a "trade guild" or something, and no site icon or any other indicator appeared. (When you get a gold mine event, a gold mine site icon shows up). Perhaps something like this even had happened in my original game and I just missed the message. (Given the misfortune-3 scale and rare events setting this seems unlikely, but is still the best explanation).

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I was thinking the same thing, but only the home province gets the bonus gems. Probably it would be way too powerful if Ermor got bonus gems everywhere.

Re: Soul Gate Ermor tips?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That could be the cause of the income increase also. I've never really noticed the effect of this event, though, as I've basically never had it happen with my Ermor, perhaps because the typical Ermorian scales prevent such a thing from occurring even in luck 2 or 3, but I suppose this effect could still work even after the province is depopulated.