HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

I am intrigued with the thought of ruling this dark and sinister empire. I have a dozen or so games under my belt and have avoided this empire as I reacquainted myself with the intricate details of Dominions. (What a great game of unprecedented depth!)

I’m not a fan of the Death Scale but I can be converted with the right advice. However I link long epic games and have read that tipping the scale in favor of death may not be a good strategy in epic scale games.

I’m looking for some advice from veteran rules of the Ermor empire. Tips, strategies, tactics, and recipes for disaster are all welcome.

Thank you!

-Arboris

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Don't take Death scale, it will make Old Age worse. I've been playing with Astral/Death bless.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Well I'm not really a vet, but anyway.

The basics in a no particular order:

Any commander, even independent ones, with atleast one level of Holy can reanimate undeads. So take advtantage of this and recruit lots of priests outside your capitol to make expendable chaff troops.

Your best low level thugs would be Banes, Conjuration lvl 3. A good chasis with enough MR to resist banish from low level priests. A lucky pendant (5 astral gems) and whatever 10+ damage weapon you can afford will make a good thug against anything that doesn't have trample. Doom Glaive being a favourite of mine. This works until lvl 7+ summons shows up on the scene anyway.

Conjuration lvl 2 also gives you Dark knowledge which should help in improving your death gem income.

Enchantment lvl 1 will give your mages the ability to spamm undeads on the battlefield. lvl 4(?) gives you Behemots.

A well known battlefield tactic for Ermor and Pythium is to make a large block of Principes and place an astral mage or two in the middle. Then cast the Alteration 3 spell Body Etheral. This gives you etheral troops with armor and good stats! Give the principes the order to Fire closest, they will throw their javelins at their closest target and then engage.

You need to make a deciscion what your Middle/Late game is going to be though. Either you invest in astral magic with Thaumaturgy at lvl 5+ for Soulslay and Enslave mind spells. Or you try to get Conjuration lvl 9 and bring out some Tartarians. There are some nice Death evocation spells, but I have yet to train evocation beyond lvl 3 with ermor until turn 60+, thinking that Conjuration or Enchantment is more important for them.

Death and Astral spells are your strenghts. Etheral principes with some decked out banes as a vanguard, a horde of low undead chaff to wear the enemy down and all of them backed up by 3-4 unholy priests is a pretty standard Ermor tactic.

Magic item production can be in other paths with some creative pretender construction.

Your "artillery" will be lacking until quite well into the game. But cheap commanders with decent preciscion score can be decked with scepters of command (F2, construction lvl 4) for some decent long range firepower. You will need either your pretender of an indy mage to make these though.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Also, you can use the Black Servants from Conjuration 1 for some early game action if you can get them some armors. They are ethereal, and that helps a lot. You'll probably won't have enough gems or mages to make armor, but e.g. Earth would be wonderful. As with most undead, they have Encumberance 0, and thus won't suffer from heavy armors' fatique.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

If you go with Black servants, you really need to put an anti magic amulet on them. Otherwise even independents will banish them pretty darn quick.

A Black servant with a Doom glaive, Fire plate, anti magic amulet makes a good thug. Thats quite a bit of gem investment in one lvl 1 summon though.

Or maybe Im just paranoid, after having lost 3 of these to an independent lvl 1 priest in my last game on turn 12... :p

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Can someone tell me what a thug is? I've figured out what a SC is but still not sure what thug means. It seems like a regular unit with lots of magical artifacts equipped? Sort of a mini-SC?

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Exactly that. Sort of a mini-SC.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Death Magic has a good number of spells for stealth raiding squads. I use them mainly to pick on provinces with temples in them where you only have to deal with PD. A Spectre commander with Shades, Shade Beasts, Dispossed Spirits, and Ghosts are all available at D3 and Conj 6. They're all stealthy and ethereal and Chill 3 I believe, and Spectre's are pretty good mages.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Belcarl,

I'd love to hear what you have to say on this subject.

I'd also love to hear from anyone else with pretender construction advice!

Thanks folks for all the great tips and advice thus far. Ever since SE IV I have been a big fan of the Shrapnel forum community!

-Arboris

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

you forget ye old Nether darts for Broken Empire.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

A few notions for Broken Empire:

* Don't generally want Death scales.

* Learn to use your priests to reanimate. Follow your armies to reanimate armed soulless before the bodies go stale or the peasants bury them.

* Use national priest spells to improve the performance of the undead, especially the soulless, from totally incompetant to semi-decent fodder.

* IIRC, note that a holy-4 prophet can be had, giving access to better reanimation and battlefield spells.

* Also, the astral magic can be used to increase the holy power of high priests during combat, giving them access to higher undead-enhancing priest spells.

* Develop combined arms tactics with a mix of different types of undead and living troops.

PvK

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

You can also use Antimagic, the Astral 3 spell to further protect your undead units.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Don't forget the sacred troop : vestales (undead and ethereal) and lictors (living ones), there are pretty cheap and quick to gather in your capital at the beginning.

Vestales need Unholy blessing and lictors blessing.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Vestals are wonderful. Especially with Astral 9/Death 9 bless.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

I haven't had the opportunity to try BE Ermor in Dom3 yet, but I was a big fan in Dom2. I second most of these suggestions (I'm a little unimpressed with the Vestals, though) but would add that Ghouls (from the reanimate spell) make great fodder/arrow catchers while your javelin troops clean up. Your cheaper mages can command the ghouls while they cast Nether Darts or various Astral battlefield magic. This tactic might be a little less useful now that temples are so expensive, though. I liked depopulating unproductive provinces with a half-dozen cheap priests and using the ghouls to take down the easier indie provinces. I'll check back here in this thread to see how this works in Dom3...

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

You can recruit Vestals like normal units now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Vestals make great Death bless units. 9d4s makes them powerful, and they are quite resistant to banishing. Censors are interesting melee units but somewhat less versatile, best used against priest heavy nations like Pythium.

THE MOST ESSENTIAL thing you do as Broken Empire is make a Grand Thaumaturg a prophet. On turn 2. This lets you make 6 longdead horsmen for free every turn hence, something that is essential as BE as you lack any sort of recruitable national cavalry.

Vestals really are very good, with high defense as well as etherial. They make great flanking units, and will generally survive in melee.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Vestals make great everything, they are good at tanking too. Etherality is Good.

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Well, they're also hot girls with transparent clothing, possess great dexterity, are a cheap date since they never eat, never grow old (at least in the space your lifetime!), and are bispiritual. Seems like it's hard to go wrong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Except they're ethereal. You can look, but you can't touch!

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

I bet they are also cold to the touch. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

You just need a magic weapon.

-Frank

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Doesn't make them any warmer unless it's a Fire Brand or Flambeau. And those might be a bit too hot...

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Rod of the Phoenix - makes you warm inside, but not until discharged...

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

About the creative pretender approach.

Take a good look at the manual where the booster items are mentioned. Nature, Earth and death paths can be boosted with items at D2 or (N2, E2). The other paths need either a combination with another path, or rank 3 or 4 before you can make boost items.

So, a pretender with primary Death magic could with and investment of F2 and N2 easily reach F3 and N3. You could even start with N1 and use the cheapest empowerment lvl1 to 2 for 30 gems if you are short on design points.

That said.

F2+ gives you a few weapons, F3 enables the Flambue.
F combined with earth gives the charcoal shield.
N2 gives the regen ring
A2 gives acess to the thunderbow
W2: Bottle of living water (could be w3, but think its w2) and a few good swords.
D2: Mentor skulls, horror helms
B2: the boots that stops aging
B6F2: Soul contract for the Dom2 Devil factory tactic.
F2N2: Fever Fetish, for Fire gem production.
E2S2: the +1 Astral booster coin.

to name but a few of the more commonly used items. I might be slightly wrong in the required paths, writing this from memory http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

I took the liberty of taking some of the advice from this thread to populate the Broken Empire page of the Wiki

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Nether Darts, Nether Darts, Nether Darts. Evocation 7 makes those Thaumaturges a main ingredient of your army. Protect them at all costs - meat/undead shield, troops on guard-order. Add a Spell Focus and an Eye of Aiming (if enough Air gems) and watch them roll. Oh, and those Darts are armor negating and cause feeblemindness so even SCs need to think twice before taking on your armies. Victims get a resistance roll, but high precision causes more darts to land so...

I say Dart 'em to death and let your priests sort 'em out!

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Anyone got any suggestions? Not like I am fishing for help in my first MP game or anything...

Re: HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)
 

Communions. With them even your lowly mages can cast some great spells. A horde of longdead backed by darkness and the power of the unholy sepulchre spell(+4 attack and increased movement) should almost never miss regular troops, will rarely get him, and can generally do well.
Communions are pretty essential since the best you can get out of your capitol is D1S1, and while that is nice, it just gets so much better later on.

I keep most of my Grand Thaumaturgs for ritual casting, teleporting(they can take out SCs that aren't expecting them) and leading large armies. My regular thaumaturgs do most of the heavy lifting by reanimating, casting most of my battlefield spells and leading smaller armies/raiding forces which can replenish their numbers via reanimation.

For the early game, blessed Shadow Vestals(even with the price increase they got a while back) are nice. W9S9 seems to be very popular, but my personal preferance is F9S9(on an imprisoned oracle). I find F9 gives more magical diversity(you already have water) even if it isn't a great path, and the F9 really ups their killing power - but either bless is nice.
Even without a bless(if you don't take one, you must take earth magic on your pretender, because its great) you can do well. Reanimated and buffed undead, dether bolts and of course those very tough Legionaires(back with archers. You wont suffer from friendly fire) can easily carry you through the early game against many threats.

Try to expand into earth magic as soon as you can(Ferrus the Iron wizard/Indy Earth Mages+Troll Kings Court was the easiest way I could get to E4 and above without rings or tartarians). Its a very powerful path, particularly for your nation(army of lead on a large army of chaff undead makes them insanely tough, particularly with darkness up) and waiting until you GoR tartarians to get it isn't much fun.

Some battle spells to use with communions:
Darkness: A hugely important 'buff' for your undead only/mostly undead armies. By reducing the enemies attack and precision your greatly improve your troops survivability(and with longdead horsemens naturally high defense they become incredibly powerful in melee) and by reducing the enemies defense you make them much more vunerable.

Power of the Unholy Sepulchre(strong version): Gives all your undead units +4 attack and action points. Combined with darkness they should almost never miss(even units like W9 vans become fairly easy to hit).

Rigor Mortis: Just to make the battle a little easier for your undead troops. Wears out the enemy quite quickly.

Antimagic/Protection of the Unholy Sepulchre: Both boost MR but don't(to my knowledge) stack. Protection of the Unholy Sepulchre is easily resisted, so several castings are usually needed for complete coverage - but it is lower fatigue and costs no gems.

Will of the Fates: A great buff. Gives all of your units luck, making them last must longer in battle.

Soul Drain: Very nice. A great help if you can't rely on your slaves to stick around as it sorts out the casters fatigue problems.

Soul Vortex: A buff for the caster and his slaves. Surround them with some living chaff and they will continually have their fatigue lowered, allowing you to cast high fatigue spells.

Master Enslave: Pretty much requiring a Grand Thaumaturg, preferably loading with items including penetration boosters, this spell is worth it. You can steal enemy armies with this spell - what more do you need to know?

Nether Darts: A great battle spell. Castable by all your mages even without a communion, but much better with one. When the mages (astral)magic level is boosted, the number of darts(base 15), the damage each dart does(base 15), and the penetration bonus all get increased. This should be a staple spell for you, and can even feeblemind unlucky SCs. Unfortunately, it can be blocked by shields in the same way as arrows and is MR negates, and that means you have to resort to its little brother.

Nether Bolt: A lesser version of Nether Narts. Better precision, range and base damage(20) and it can't be stopped by shields, but its only AoE 1 and MR negates. A very handy early game spell for your thaumaturg-led raiding forces.

Shadow Blast: Sort of like Nether Bolt on steroids. This requires a death gem, atleast D2 magic and is high fatigue. For that the spell gives you an AoE of 7+ and a damage of 20+(MR negates). Communion a few thaumaturgs up to D4-5(or grand thaumaturgs up to D6-7) and watch the carnage - add penetration boosters for added effect. Hitting and killing huge portions of the enemy army with enough damage per hit to take out giants, this spell is a monster.

Terror: A very handy spell against regular troops, this spell works best with darkness. Regular longdead and soulless lack killing power, so this spell helps to win battles. The morale penalty from darkness, the morale check from being hit(reduced defense from darkness means enemy will get hit) and the hugely reduced morale from a high level casting of terror(or several, depending on the number of masters) will rout most enemies quickly.

Drain Life: The monster killer. 100 Precision and 14+ base damage(D4 mage) that is completely unresistable by the majority of units make this a great SC killer(remember the teleporting grand thaumaturgs I mentioned earlier? Get a few up to D4 and let them take out an enemy SC while he's still buffing). For the few SCs that are immune to this spell, you can resort to spamming either Nether Darts or Desintigrate(100 precision, death on a failed MR check, only needs D2).

There are more, but I have to go now. Hope this helps for now.