Priests and LA Ermor
 

I've done some tests with priests vs. LA Ermor, and I'm kinda wondering about the talk about "Priests counter Ermor". Even without buffing, 300 castle undead inflicted 19 kills on the infantry protecting 10 priests with shields.

Given the insane priest/undead ratio, the lack of ANY buffs for the undead, and the presence of 60 infantry, am I missing something, or is this "the sucky strategy" that is supposed to work?

Cause playing Ermor, I can easily see how I'd run this over.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

If I'm missing something about using priests against Ermor, then I really do want to hear it. Is there some specific thing necessary to make them work? If there is some pre-Level 7 spell that is necessary, then please say it.

If this is just another pathetically broken piece of c***, then please admit it so I can realize I have no chance and move on from there.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Well, using Priests against Ermor is generally a matter of quantity. Regarding your initial post, I'm confused about the second sentence.

Did you kill 300 Undead in exchange for 19 kills on your priest's guards? If so, I would think that's a fair exchange. Any buffs that the undead would get would be minor, since the MR buff is rather hard to 'stick'.

Something you might want to consider is the 'priest raiding strategy'where you send about 20 priests into an Ermorian province scripted with Banishx5 then flee.

Regarding spells, Solar Rays (Evo2 S2) can be very effective. If you have the gems and have researched Construction 4, you can make Herald Lances (S2, 10 pearls) which would let any commander throw Solar Rays.

Almost any Area effect Evocation will be effective. Falling Fire/Frost is quite good. Dust to Dust (D1, Thau1) is very good against undead, and Wither Bones (D3, Thau6) is even more effective. Against chaff undead (especially longdead) Blade Wind (E3, Evo4) is also quite effective.

It would help if we knew what nation you were playing to give more pointed advice.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

In my experience, the Level 1 priests you can recruit are almost useless for this purpose. This is because Banishment's AoE and damage is based heavily on Holy level, and Holy 1 makes a very small Area of Effect and doesn't do much damage.

Holy 2, however, is the real deal. Put five Holy 2's on the field and you will see more killed undead than ten Holy 1s.

Also, when fighting Ermor and blasting them with Banishments, you want to make the combat go longer, so they spend more time dying. Simple infantry recruited out of a Indie province is BS. Put heavily armored and hopefully Lifeless things on the front (I like Statues), but regenerating meatshields work as well. Luck armies are also ideal.

Stuck with Holy 1's? There are several ways to increase Holy level. They are Prophet(one H3), Crystal Shield(E1,S1 for for +1H) or Power of the Spheres(S1 spell and one pearl for +1H), Communions or Sabbaths(easy to get a +2H with four slaves), two artifacts(+1 Hs), Hellpower(B3 and 3 slaves for +2H, beware the Horrors), and summoning Telestic Animations(H2).

Done correctly, you should be throwing down so many kills that your priests will be competing against each other for spots on the Hall of Fame, and you have losses per battle in the single digits. Ermor's real weakness is that you basically know the 6-7 kinds of units it'll use, and you'll see SCs and some summoned crap thrown in for flavor.

Ps. Penetration rules. Eyes of the Void and Spell Focuses are a must to counter a self-buffing Ermor.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

What are "castle undeads"? Do you mean the cavalry?

Well Ermor is strong in conventional battles. Priests (Holy 1 in your case?)help but say are not the "all time" solution.

The big disadvantage of LA ermor is the lack of non gem mages. A good build army can defeat thousands of undeads without taking damage. Right build SC's do the same. However thats primary in the mid/lategame so you will have your problems in early game.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

I'm not sure about the uselessness of H1 priests. Sure, H2 or H3 are better, but it's often cheaper and easier to field 10 H1 priests than 5 H2s. And almost certainly not worth boosting standard H1 priests with Crystal Shields or artifacts. If you've got cheap Astral/Blood priests, communion is great for boosting some (No fatigue, so have the slaves banish as well.)

The key to H1 priests is quantity. For a major fight against LA Ermor, you'd want 20-30, along with some real mages and a meat shield.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

That was a real answer. Thank you. I find confort in knowing that the standard garbage answer to dealing with Ermor is complete nonsense.

-They are Prophet(one H3)

Total Number Fielded-1

- Crystal Shield(E1,S1 for for +1H)

Crystal Shield costs 25 astral. So I'm certain you're joking about using this. You are joking, right?

-Power of the Spheres(S1 spell and one pearl for +1H)

Mages that cast "Power of the Spheres" refuse to cast banishment after Turn 5. They instead elect to pass out casting "Blade Wind" against units with tower shields. I'm sure other national priest/mages are similiarly pyscho.

-Works! Communions:

I used "Crystal Matrixs" to get a Communion going, and the priests went insane, cast Banishment twice a turn, and charged the undead. I suppose I'll pen them up so they can't charge, and use this ERROR IN CODE on Ermor.

-Sabbaths(easy to get a +2H with four slaves)
-Hellpower(B3 and 3 slaves for +2H, beware the Horrors),

LA Mictlan undoubtly slaughters Ermor

-and summoning Telestic Animations(H2)

Ok, this is usefull. It has ALOT of problems with it, but usefull.

-Ps. Penetration rules. Eyes of the Void and Spell Focuses are a must to counter a self-buffing Ermor.

Yes, I was trying to give them to Marignon for free, but he has decided he "was dead", and refused to answer any messages.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

-Did you kill 300 Undead in exchange for 19 kills on your priest's guards? If so, I would think that's a fair exchange. Any buffs that the undead would get would be minor, since the MR buff is rather hard to 'stick'.

A single castle/temple Ermor undead generator creates 25 undead a turn.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

-What are "castle undeads"? Do you mean the cavalry?

Well Ermor is strong in conventional battles. Priests (Holy 1 in your case?)help but say are not the "all time" solution.

The big disadvantage of LA ermor is the lack of non gem mages. A good build army can defeat thousands of undeads without taking damage. Right build SC's do the same. However thats primary in the mid/lategame so you will have your problems in early game.

---------------------------
By all means tell me the "good build". Any LA nation, except no H3 priests.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

I recently won a MP game with LA Ermor and I must say lvl 1 priests where a very small threat to my undead, even when massed in large numbers 20-30.

I made sure every battle I fought I had darkness, rigor mortis and protection of the sepulchre up. This meant I would often destroy far more of the enemy or equal numbers, which of course means Ermor wins given its huge freespawn every turn.

What did give me trouble was LA Ctis spamming wither bones, I lost many 1,000's of undead to that and LA Tien Chi's anchestor smiths casting multiple rain of stones. Rain of Stones destroyed a 1,500 strong undead army in a mere 4 combats rounds.

If you can destroy 75% of the undead quickly the rest will autoroute, pretty much resulting in 100% casulties for LA Ermor.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

-Regarding spells, Solar Rays (Evo2 S2) can be very effective.

This statement indicates you are another ra-ra Dominions player. A mage killing 3 undead per turn is not great. It is pathetic. It is so pathetic that there are no words to describe it's patheticness.

-Dust to Dust (D1, Thau1)
Dust to Dust was designed to kill the Vampire Queen and other super-powerful undead. It is USELESS against legions of dead.

-Something you might want to consider is the 'priest raiding strategy'where you send about 20 priests into an Ermorian province scripted with Banishx5 then flee.
Yes, I can see this working.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

You sure are aggressive with your opinions Lord_Bob.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Hey Lord_Bob, those people try to help you, they save you time making up strategies and list all the things that could be helpful against those undeads so be at least a bit polite. If you think solar rays is useless, just write "I think it's useless" instead of "This statement indicates you are another ra-ra Dominions player". No need to be so rude.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Heck no. Take a Prophet, and a Crystal Shield(only 11 earth and 7 Astral with a Hammer), and a four slave communion, and you've got a Holy 6.

I don't care who you are or what you have seen, because you will be impressed when you see a H6 cast Banishment.


Odd. I find in general the AI choses the available spell with the highest AoE. Can you field a non-Earth Holy mage?

Do you have a Nature 9 or 10 Bless(making holies Beserk), because casters are not supposed to do stuff like that. Also check your scripting: communioned mages should be set to Cast/Cast/cast/cast/cast spells.

Also, watch out for the danger of putting to many masters in a Communion. Each time a master casts a spell, each slave also get's their own spellcasting fatigue, meaning a slave with 4 masters anf a spellcasting fatigue of 4 and casting their own Banishment will get 20 fatigue a turn on top of their portion of the master's fatigue.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Any money this degenerates into another flame thread. Can we just all ignore him?

And Lord_Bob? If a 15:1 kill ratio is not enough for you, I'd suggest finding another game. As you say, an Ermorian Castle can spawn about 25 undead a turn. Surely you can get 1.667 guards for your priests in the same time period? It's not like you are losing the priests, no?

If you have a high dominion, there's also Purgatory. Wrath of God can also work. Yes, they are Globals. If you can't guard them, don't use them.

>I made sure every battle I fought I had darkness, rigor >mortis and protection of the sepulchre up. This meant I >would often destroy far more of the enemy or equal >numbers, which of course means Ermor wins given its huge >freespawn every turn.

Responding to a different poster, you were able to put these up, every battle, with every army? This sounds a little hard to believe. That's also two level 6 battle enchantments that cost a total of 5 death gems every battle. This does not sound like a 'pre-level 7' issue that needs to be responded to, which is what Lord_Bob specified.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

VeldalkenBear wasn't suggesting that you (Lord_Bob) have mages cast Solar Rays. His suggestion was to build herald lances, and give them to your non-mage commanders. If they are hasted (W9 bless or equip) then I think the Solar Rays fire faster. And the lances give a morale boost to your front line too.

Anyway, it's better than having your commanders just sitting there doing nothing.

What nation are you playing? You could always hope for this guy. He's not even in a communion! With 16 communion slaves, you could get him up to H14. That should help with your banishment http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...nions/Ek-1.jpg

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

I was actually suggesting both. If you have Astral mages who aren't priests, they're more damage. Of course, if you have Thaumaturgy spells, then you might be better off trying to use those, or making use of them in other ways.

To take the magic types in order:

Fire:

Battle Evocations. Falling Fires is probably the best I can think of offhand pre-7. With a high-level mage, this will work very well against Longdeads. There are several other options. With Marignon/Flambeaus, Holy Pyre is an option.

Air:

Air is better at smaller, quality-based armies. Still, Wrathful Skies is probably just as good as other options. Thunderstrike is also pretty good for area effects.

Water:

This is probably the weakest magic type vs. Undead. Ice Strike is okay, I guess, but it's Evo7. If you have Water/Fire mages, Acid Rain is a good choice. At Evo-6, you get Cleansing Water.

Earth:

Blade Wind against the real chaff (i.e., the ones without shields). As others have said, Rain of Stones can be effective. Magma Eruption is also a good choice. A somewhat cute trick would be to use something like Destruction followed by Blade Wind. Probably not too practical, though.

Astral:

Magic Duel against opposing Astral Dusk Elders. Solar Rays, as mentioned before. Astral Geyser is pretty cute, especially if you back it up with summoned Horrors.

Death:

Dust to Dust. Counterspamming (depending on number of Death mages you have; it at least buys you more time for your priests). Control the Dead can be interesting as a delaying tactic. Wither Bones. Naturally Undead Mastery, but outside the scope of this discussion.

Nature:

Storm of Thorns can be effective against Ethereal Undead, and also to delay the horde. I'm not sure if Polymorph works on Undead, but it's also Alt8. Conj8 has Wild Growth. Hm, maybe Nature has it worst for Battle magic answers, anyway.

Blood:

Hellfire. Presumably, Bloodletting would also be effective.

This is a quick analysis.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

This is a known bug. After experiencing it, I looked it up in the Bug List. Search for "Communion"

You've got a good point about the super-boosted Prophet.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

That is without buffs or tactics of any kind. Ermor destroyed Marignon, played by a new player, with an army of over 1200 undead on turn 25-26. 1,200. For me to keep this ratio(ignoring the fact that Ermor IS going to buff his army) I would need 40 priests. FORTY. With buffs, SIXTY OR MORE.

I'm curious, how many priests do you have on turn 25?

20? 60? 100?

The point is, telling new players to use "Indy Priest" is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY WRONG.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Solar Rays kills 3 undead per turn. Only 3. If MA Ermor rushes you with some longdead calvary, then it's a working Desperate Measure. For LA Ermor, it is totally garbage. The person was suggesting a strategy he clearly hadn't thought about at all. I have run real tests. Many, many real tests, and I don't need to be dismissed with "solutions" people clearly haven't thought about at all.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

I think LORD BOB MIGHT HAVE A POINT but he behaves like SUCH A TOOL no-one is going to LISTEN TO HIM!!111!!11!

Think about how MANY UNDEAD LA Ermor might have by TURN 45 it MIGHT be like 10k or so THAT'S OVER 9000!!!11!!1!!11!11!!eleven

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

There needs to be a Godwin's law for DBZ references.

Jazzepi

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

What's odd is I see much ruder behavior daily. WHO you are must effect WHAT is rude.

The problems with LA Ermor have existed for over one and a half years. I am quite sure they are not going to be fixed.
It can take advantage of it's massive army advantage to get huge before the Level 7 spells come out.

You are aware the only paths Ermor doesn't have is Blood and Nature?Of course,nature is easily gotten from Shamans.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

1200 Undead shouldn't be impossible to counter at turn 25, assuming you didn't get a terrible start.

While going from your tests you may need 40-60 priests to kill those undead, they are not the only answer to the problem, although they do help.
Decent troops should be able to kill plenty of undead. Archers will do fairly heavy damage to unshielded troops and the shield guys fall quite easily in combat. Battle magic can do heavy damage, depending on your nation and of course rank-an-file soldiers can usually go toe-to-toe with undead for quite a while - maybe even indefinitely if you researched straight for nice buffs.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

People are generally responding to your rudeness rather than generating it from nothing. But at the same time they are trying to be helpful. It's not like you do your maladjusted antisocial spiel and people respond with a #@%! off.

Of course you could argue that people who respond rudely are no better than the person who starts it, but I don't necessarily believe that. Regardless, you know how the saying goes; You can typically attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

1200 undead total or in one province?

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

wow, this is totally about me. Bob, you are talking about in BAG right? It's wierd to hear about oneself like this.

Anyway, I invaded in two waves, 700 troops and then 1500 troops, and while I had my guys buffed with Protection and such, Marignon was woefully unprepared to meet an undead invasion. Not even the huge masses of priests mentioned here. Although he did win one of the first major battles, hte rest was smooth sailing.

Wow, hearing about youreslf...its an interesting feeling

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

The reason you're not liking the answers you're getting, Lord Bob, is that you've presented these people with an unsolvable problem.

You say 1200 undead on turn 25. Well has the Ermor player become a powerhouse in your game or is he fairly modest? Have you become a powerhouse or are you fairly modest or not doing well at all? What magics have you unlocked? How much gems are you getting? Hell, even what nation are you playing?

Looking at your third post, your army has apparently changed from just posting on the forum. A Crystal Shield doesn't cost 25 pearls when you've got earth mages searching sites for earth gems. And you certainly do have earth mages if your priests are switching to Blade Wind, an E3 spell.

Neither have you specified what buffs the Ermor army is getting or that you anticipate they will get, and even the composition of their 1200 undead seem to get distorted as they have shields in one moment and not the next.

It's just plain unfair for you to switch the situation every time they suggest a resolution by countering the Ermor's spells and assets and to make your empire weaker whenever they suggest a resolution by overpowering.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

As the neighbor of both Ermor and Marignon, I would have to say that this game is hardly a representative case. For one, Marignon has been bottled up on an island since about turn 10, and only had about 12 provinces in total. Also, I think Marignon is a bit new to MP, since as far as I can tell he never built PD. Not to downplay BigAndScary's victory, but this is really more of a case of a big power crushing a small power, rather than Ermor being unbeatable.

To derail a bit: in my test games with Ermor, it has always seemed like they have a real difficulty keeping up in research. Their national mages all require death gems, which are already in huge demand. And even after the mages are created, there is still a lot of competition for their time, as the mages are also needed for site searching, leading armies, summoning more mages, and casting battle field enchantments. How do you manage to stay competitive in research?

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Skull Mentors. A Dusk Elder is 25 gems for 6 reseach, and a Mentor is 10 for 9. For the price of two Elders (12 research), you can have 45 points instead (or 63 with a Hammer involved).

-----------

vtb,

How did you get the Holy that high? By my count I'm one short.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

There is a general consensus on this forum that you're an odious little troll. So as for ruder behaviour,.. well I can't think of anyone else so unpopular on these forums. Regardless, I don't really mind trolls. What I feel compelled to mock is the way you act like whatever you're ranting about is SUPER DUPER CEREAL. It kills me it really does.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

K, The First King is H5 to start. (woot! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

Prophetize him, and he's H6. Sword of Injustice, H7. Crystal Shield, H8 in battle. Then Ekishnugal casts Hell Power, and he's H10.

Lord_Bob, I didn't know the discussion was about Marignon and Ermor. Marginon's H3 Inquisitors should really lay some smack down on the undead hordes. And making one H5 by prophetising & Crystal Shield is a good plan. Trade someone for a few Crystal Matrix too (also only Const4), or take a god with earth and astral to make them yourself, and 4 cheap S1 Chartmakers turn your H3s into H5s and your H5 Prophet into H7.

Banishment at H3 is:
Area 8, Damage 11AN, Penetration+1

Banishment at H5 is:
Area 12, Damage 17AN, Penetration+2

Banishment at H7 is:
Area 16, Damage 23AN, Penetration+3

If you don't like that idea, there's also Inner Sun: 1 in 4 Goetic Masters can cast this. It's Alt3, 1 gem, cast it any time before the battle. Script 5 spells then attack closest, and when he gets poked, he explodes for 15AN damage (MR) with area 35. You want to give the undead time to get rid of their javelins so they are nice and close when you set them up the bomb. You could even try a Blink as your final spell, but YMMV with that. Kind of expensive though. Since you didn't like trading 190 gold for 300 undead, you probably won't like this. If you have indies like a 90 gold Magus it would be better.

Or, Conj-6 will get Marignon some Harbringers. Its ranged attack is Area 5, 15AP damage versus undead, 15 shots.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Sombre, you're seriously out of line with both of those quoted posts, so pipe down unless you like being oppressed. I have no qualms dishing that out all around if this thread goes down the tubes and comments like those are a sure way to put it there. The quoted posts there are nothing BUT flamebait and we have rules against that sort of thing. Don't do it again. This is a formal warning.


Lord_Bob, one of the previous comments about honey being a better attractant than vinegar is spot on, so could you please adopt a more civil tone? You have a style of posting that seems to aggravate many users and a way of declaring opinions as facts, which further alienates some people. So a bit calmer, please?

I would also ask that if you think something is bugged, post about it in the bug discussion thread and we can hash that out. If new issues crop up or issues which cause compound problems, I will not know about them beforehand, but there were several statements by you about bugs in this thread that aren't as clearcut as you may think.

Finally,
This again falls into the out of line category of posting. Especially since this particular insult to VedalkenBear was completely unprovoked, he was trying to help you. So kindly tone it down.

If this thread doesn't start cleaning up and calming down on it's own, I'm going to shut it down and if it comes down to that, the people dishing out any follow-up oppression will have user names in white letters.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Bob, you asked for pre-7 Research that could affect Undead. I found, in about 5 minutes consulting the rulebook, any number of spells and/or items that can help to even the fight. I then reported it. Did I say that these would instantly win the fight for you? No. I was answering your question. A question, I might point out, that with a little bit of researching you could have answered yourself. Since 'LE Ermor is so powerful' is a common complaint of newer players, I (perhaps incorrectly) assumed that you did not know of common counters to them.

Now, if we're talking about Marignon? You have good priests. And, to be honest, if I knew that Ermor was in a LE game, I'd probably make Inquisitors my researchers, and so I should have ~20 by turn 25 (and those are level 2 priests, not 1). Will it slow down my research? Possibly. OTOH, they're very low upkeep, and their research isn't bad with a good Magic scale (which will help when fighting Ermor in your own Dominion).

IIRC, LE Marignon still gets Holy Pyre, which gives your Goetic Masters something to throw in combat (and they'll last longer with Phoenix Power). Okay, scratch that. Unless the rulebook is incorrect, it's only ME Marignon that gets it. Still, there are rather common Fire evocations they can throw. If you're trying to do fast Blood magic, they can throw Hellfire.

As for a new player? I don't think you want to sling that around without some proof. The fact that I don't have problems with LE Ermor whereas you apparently do would seem to be counterindicative that you are more experienced than I.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Edi: If you think the posts will incite further trouble wouldn't it make sense to delete them?

I don't have a problem with that.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Deleting them is not going to make the things in them unsaid, so it's a completely moot point. I'd rather that the thread stay intact on that score if and when it gets reviewed from higher up.

Whether or not you have a problem with how this is resolved is utterly irrelevant to me, since if I'm going to do something about things, I'm NOT going to consult you about it. The only consulting I will be doing will be with the other moderators. So please do not try to tell me how to do my job as a moderator. With your participation in this thread so far, that's not a good idea.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Maybe you should not underestimate the undead.
bring several (a LOT of) priests (lvl 1 is ok)
Frontline infantry (or any tough guys like vine ogres)
Archers (they often kill more undead than the priests)

if you dont deal with ermor quick you should get an ally or you could be overwelmed.

if you are, try a mass damage spell like wrathful skyes or earthquake.
Blade wind is optimal. most of the undeads are unarmed souless reanimated by priests and not the legionaries guys.

i didnt try but maybe stuff like swarm may work.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

As far as I was concerned I was only asking you a question. But if you want to read that as me telling you how to do your job, you have my full permission http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Just a little reminder from the Board Rules:

3) USER FIGHTING:

If you post in this forum, we expect you to contribute positively to a conversation. If you disagree with someone, great, explain your point of view, have an open discussion. Please do not disparage the other person. Personal attacks are unacceptable. They just lower the brow of all involved. If you don't like someone, talk about it on ICQ, MSN, AIM, YIM, your journal, or your blogger, but not here. People who bait or bash members or mods may be banned without notice.

Flaming, humiliating, ridiculing, or belittling other members will not be tolerated. This includes blatant disrespect of others whether it is through negative language or general attitude. We see no difference between straight out calling someone stupid and using creative language and attitude to imply that person is stupid.

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If you get out of hand you will be warned, if the negative behavior continues you may be banned. Nobody likes it when this happens, so play nice! What actually constitutes out of hand or negative behavior is at the discretion of the staff.
------------------------------------------------------

Lord_Bob you were banned once before in part for trolling. The next ban will be for one week and is the last step before a permanent ban. I hope I have made myself clear and will not have to revisit this thread or any other containing similar attitude and insults from you again. If you reread your posts and can't see what you are doing wrong or the attitude in which everyone is complaining about, then maybe you don't have enough self awareness to be on internet message boards. I am a pretty tolerant person but there are limits.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Blah, blah, blah. In the last thread I was continously bad-mouthed. Unfortunately, I am better at dealing with bad-mouthing than they are at bad-mouthing. So they've stopped that. This is just you arriving at the "answer" you were going to reach no matter what. One of two things would happen:
A.The bullies, that have stopped all debate on these things, would be endlessly rude to me, and I would be polite. You would observe that I was being such a silly-little boy, and so wrong. Bully-boy has made so many, wrong, but oh-so-tough statements.
B.I would argue back. This would make me "rude", and you could condemn me for that.

I love these Post-Western arguments. We always know the answer, even before we've figured out how we are going to get it.

So, somehow, all real debate has stopped. Why is that?

It's because you have all the tools needed for the job.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Sorry, I guess I overreacted there somewhat. Point taken with that, you were only trying to be helpful with the suggestion. My apologies for snapping like that and no hard feelings.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

I don't have them, I was trying to give Eyes of the Void to Marignon. They are now staling, and presumed dead.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Earthquake doesn't work.

I assume the shield value is added in for Castle Undead. Cause I hit them like 4 times and killed only about a 1/3.

40% of them were the armourless, Tower-Shield wielding castle guys. 5 hitpoints and no armour.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Lord_Bob, please do not bring the earlier monkey PD threads into this one. They are a past issue, over and done with. They have absolutely nothing to do with this thread. If you try to drag them in here, it's going to end really badly.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

I am not playing Marignon. Marignon is dead. I tried to talk to them and they are no longer responding. My posts said I tried to give them Eyes of the Void.

Archers do not work against Tower Shields. I'm not even bothering to run the simulation.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Hmm.

A 'Blah, blah, blah' would be percieved as rude by most people I know of. If one of my students said 'Blah, blah, blah' to me when I asked him or her to listen I would consider him or her rude.

You do not win when people stop bad-mouthing you. You win if they never start bad mouthing you. Friends at least.

In regards to A.
I don't think they would be endlessly rude to you. Most bullies stop bullying if they don't get attention, since attention is what they crave. If they would be endlessly rude to you the admins would presumably talk to them about unacceptable behavior.
You would be polite, you say. Why not? Sounds like nice and normal behavior. I would approve.

I don't think real debate has stopped, but I believe that how you come across to people makes them less interested in having a debate with you on the matter at hand, and instead turn their focus towards how you present your opinions. If you like to debate I think you should work on how you present your arguments, lest you will find yourself in situations where all debate stops.

Edit: I hope you dont mind me saying that.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Then, if I may ask, Bob, so that we can give the best advice possible, who _are_ you playing?

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

I'm talking about having an Archbishop of Eldergate spam the spells available at Turn 1. They can be summoned, but are expensive. Any Ermor player should have an H3 or H4 priest present at every major battle unless they have a very good reason. That is the only "undead buff" I am talking about. So that's it for Ermor "buffs".

I would prefer that we talk about Castle Undead, as was stated in the beginning.

I deliberately left things wide open on the other side, but did want to exclude races that have H3 priest, because, obviously, that is race specific. I have also admitted that Blood Priests can power communion themselves to mighty levels. However, this doesn't cover all races, at all.

The fact that I have stated certain common answers don't work is true. That is because they don't work.

I looked it up, and a crystal shield costs 15 Astral Pearls and 10 Earth gems, which is still really, really expensive. Even with a Hammer, it is expensive. Good for a Prophet, not so helpfull for H1 priests.

40 H1 priests cost 2000 gold, and must be built from at least 4-5 temples, costing 1600-2000 gold. That is a total investment of 3600-4000 gold. For turn 25 that is not "moderate resources". This is a huge investment that is COMPLETELY USELESS against non-Blood, non-Ermor nations. It is, in fact, more effective against Blood nations than Ermor . Sadly.

Archers are useless against Castle Undead. Every one of them has a Tower Shield.(Some low chance longdead may have shields)

Solar Rays doesn't work either.

Earthquake bizarely doesn't work. I thought it would work to.... in the test, 4 of them will kill about 1/3 of a Castle Undead force.

Some people have suggested solutions that work.
-Telestic Animation is cheap, and could probably be "spammed" into a province that is going to be attacked
-Communion and Sabbath for priest(which is not that simple)
-Crystal Shield for prophet
-Cleansing Water(Evo-6)
-Various Level-7 spells that work against all national armies
-Wither Bones(Thau-6)
-Herald Lance(very poor solution)
-Various Marignon solutions, which wasn't what I was looking for, I am not playing Marignon(I am looking for "normal race" answers)
-Power of the Spheres, if you can prevent your mages from casting other spells.
-Penetration items, Spell Focus, and Eyes of the Void
-presumably SCs

I do read peoples answers.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Point by point.

Yes, the Archbishop is expensive. It takes a skilled player to juggle the death gem income that Ermor starts with. The best time to take out Ermor is, ironically, early.

We can restrict ourselves to talking about 'castle undead', but that is not fair, as your opponent will not be fielding only those troops (unless he micromanages to an alarming degree). Someone mentioned before that even in MP games, Ermor's army is only about 40% 'castle trops'. Therefore, I see no reason to restrict ourselves to 'castle undead'.

Let's talk about the nations in LE, and their Priest availability. The only nations that do not have L2 priests recruitable are, IIRC, Man, Tien Chi (maybe), Caelum, and maybe Patala (Oh, I think Pangaea might be in here too). (I'm sure people will point out if I'm wrong, and where.) Therefore, I am not sure why you focus on the H1 issues.

If 'common answers' don't work, then you really should specify under what conditions they don't work. If by that you mean 'by turn 25 against a 1200-piece undead horde', then you should specify that. The better you define your problem, the better answers we can give.

Yes, 40 H1 Priests are completely useless against nations unless:

1) They use Undead.
2) They want their Dominion in your lands (Temp ones mostly)
3) They use weak demons.
4) They are not mages (which I assume is the case).

and:

5) You don't need to build temples (i.e., you already have enough priests for that).

So, you see, your statement is quite hyperbolic. And I would like to point out again that the vast majority of LE nations (by my reckoning) have access to Holy-2 Priests. Yes, some of them are capital-only. On turn 25, this is not much of an issue.

And Archers are not as useful as they normally are against 'castle undead', true. However, we have the countervailing point that Ermorian armies (especially by turn 25) either are huge OR they have solely 'castle undead'. Not both.

Finally, I would ask again for what nation you are playing (or were playing). Given the diverse nature of the game, what can work for one nation (buying national Holy-3 Priests) won't work for another. So instead of us trying to shoot blind finding answers that might work for your nation, it would be much easier if you tell us your nation so that we can tailor the answers to the specific situation.

Re: Priests and LA Ermor
 

Good post, Bob.

Without knowing the specifics of what map you're playing on I can't really say for sure, but on reasonably large maps my income by turn 20 is often over 2000 gold, so 40 priests and temples would only be 2 turns' worth of income...the temples will help keep Ermor's nasty-*** dominion away from you as well, which is a nice benefit. It is, granted, a large investment, but in MP games you should be able to find some help dealing with Ermor from other players to help defray the cost, and in a duel the fact that the priests are useless elsewhere doesn't really come into play.

That being said, I've personally found that Ermor is pretty OP on a smallish map/duel, as they can keep enough pressure on their opponent to stunt their research when they start out close together. In addition any province-trading via raids will always benefit Ermor, as they can rapidly pump the unrest in all the border provinces and slowly choke off their opponents' gold supply even without dominion spread. The difficulty of assaulting Ermor's capital due to needing supply items compounds this, since there isn't a reliable way to counterattack effectively.

A lot of the tactics discussed (e.g. herald lances) DO suck pretty hard, but they're better than having gems sitting in your vault if you're getting overrun. Lances also have the benefit of being mailable, so your neighbors can send them to help out.

Destruction will pop tower shields nicely, and it's only level 4 research, combos well with blade wind if you have good earth magic. Good option if you have earth. Falling fires has been mentioned I believe.

The real killers vs Ermor are the battlefield-wide spells though. Fire storm, wrathful skies, solar brilliance, etc. They're hard to get to in a tight game, but they'll pretty much auto-win battles for you as long as you've got some chaff that'll last long enough to let the BE do its thing. This is pretty much the turning point against Ermor, as before you get these spells you'll be hard pressed to fight them, but after you pick them up things become much more manageable. LA Ermor is just one of those nations that it sucks to start near, much like Niefelheim. Both are very hard to stop early but kind of sputter out later on in the game. In MP you have to diplomacy your way around the problem by getting allies or at least convincing the big bad to go after someone else, and in a duel you'll just have to accept that it's probably not a fair matchup, and don't duel them if you want a fair fight.

SCs will also work pretty well. I had my cyclops pretender turtle by himself against a huge legion of undead and he lasted 50 turns against them without regeneration, causing the entire army to dissolve on turn 50...he picked up a mess of afflictions though. Regen would obviously help with that, and the opponent had a D9 bless to boot. On the flip side of that equation you do have to be careful not to attack into too much chaff with an SC without an escape route, since 400 longdead chaff will probably last 50 turns against a lot of SCs, causing them to run and possibly die.