LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I read that LA Ermor's dominions will now kill population 10x faster than previously. Does anyone else think this is a bit much?

Now I'm not saying that it shouldn't be increased... but by a multiple of 10?? Thats a pretty massive change. Your dominion will drive nations to attack you immediately now and your income is reduced drastically to a trickle.

LA Ermor was already very difficult to play in the late game - and experienced players could usually handle it (all the anti-ermor spells).

I can't imagine trying to play it now though.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

As I just said in the other thread, this also effects ermor's enemies. If you invade you face supply problems (fairly easily mitigated, admittedly) and you get worthless land for your troubles. If they dompush they start to kill your income on the borders.

It just makes them more extreme, not necessarily much weaker.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

With dom10, Ermor's population in turn 5 in your capitol is around 3000. Turn 10, around 130. With dom5, capitol pop is around 6000 in turn 10.

One candle kills about 10% population in a month, so even the indies around your home province won't have much life in them when you grab them.

Looks like there's no choice but to take Turmoil-3 Luck-3 now, and pray for gold and fire gems.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

reaching the capitol will be harder though.. and invading Ermor doesn't make it weaker (lower income) as it does with other nations

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Take the capital and you get 15 death gems though - that is always been the real reason to attack them early.

The big problem is that your dominion is so horrible now that your neighbors MUST attack you early on unless they want' all their border provinces completely depopulated.

Also the fact that because your income will be so very, very horrible means that you build less temples and less forts which means less and weaker freespawn. You are underestimating the impact money directly has on your undead hordes. Temples = dominion, dominion = freespawn, Forts = upgraded freespawn.

No money = much less freespawn.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I think it's a big nerf for the guys rushing Ermor as soon they can for the 15d gems...

Already the ermorian castle was a trap for living conquerors, with no supply inside a counter attack could be devastating. Now supplies will be a problem even in the very early war to approach it.

edit : ...and for the neighbours not trying http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Supply is a red herring here IMHO. Staving is not good but hardly crippling and easily countered by many items.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I guess it's called Ashen Empire for a reason.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

i think you can fix your income slightly by raising taxes to 200%. pop dies so fast anyway you do a little better by milking it hard when people are still alive. i did some tests and it looks like after 5 turns you're about 200 gold ahead by pushing 200% taxes. and this means that unrest decreasing events are more helpful too. and i still have to test, but i suspect that patrolling with 200% taxes will be even better, because the pop loss will be negligable next to what your dominion does, but the increased tax revenue with minimal increases in unrest will be even better for your income.

but in general, yeah...the pop loss does seem a bit extreme. i think for diplo i'm gonna have to promise EVERYONE i encounter not to put any temples on their borders, and to keep my pretender an profit away from there. I'm hoping that'll work....

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

You can also pillage.

If they're going to do this, the Ermorian capital should also make some money. It doesn't have to be a lot - 100gp/month would enable Ermor to do build some forts and temples, on top of money from other sources.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Ermor also needs money for indy mages...

Pillage requires a large force just sitting around.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Yeah I agree D: I've definitely run starving armies around the map. This is especially true for guys with mindless units, like R'yleh. Starving? Who cares, I'm morale 50! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Jazzepi

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Pray for a hidden gold mine! At zero population you can tax it at 200% and get double funds out of it. Searching for earth sites would be a good plan.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

confirmed - patrolling with taxes at 200% seems to be your best source of income (at least in your capital). the gain's not huge though, so i'd only bother patrolling for the first turn or two in high income provinces.

in other news, playing LA ermor against a single normal AI on a small map is pretty hilarious. I was running these 5-turn income tests, when after the last one i noticed that my capital was now bordering agartha. i took all of the available units (8 dom pretender) with my starting commander, and marched. got straight to their capital, sat there until i breached the walls, took it, then mopped up the rest of them. i never spent a single gem, or used anything other than that starting army.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

In dom2 I always took Turmoil-3,Sloth-3,Death-3,Cold-3,Luck-3 (and magic depending on strategy), so I don't see that as changing much http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
And besides, it is being multiplied by 10, yes, but from what number exactly?
My tests indicate that their death dominion now kills 5% of the population per candle (and that population death occurs after dominion spread)
IIRC that's the same number it was in dom2.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Rlyeh isn't the best example, take a nation with ressource intensive troops and no nature (there are many in LA, Atlantis, Agartha, Marignon, etc...) having all the troops you use in an early war to try to destroy Ermor diseased (and demoralized for the final battles against morale 50 ennemies who never rout) may make a big difference (of course if you win fast, the 15d gems per turn make your mortal armies less important, but if Ermor succeeds to resist a moment it can change the outcome of the war).

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Even now, I'm fighting LA Ermor as Bogarus. No nature mages = no way to mitigate starvation. Already my first army has starved to death (thankfully, not commanders). Good thing my peshty are quite expendable anyway.
But with this new patch, commanders are going to starve too...

At least my dominion 10 helps to safeguard my own lands.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Commanders can starve in the new patch? That's quite a change. Before they never suffered from starvation, even with 0 supplies.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Since when are commanders going to starve in 3.15? I've not heard anything about it and neither has anyone else in the beta group so far as I know.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

You mean, commanders dont need to eat in Dominions?.. I thought they just get the first share of supplies. But when supplies = zero, they starve, dont they?

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Commanders consume supplies, but never starve, similar to various creatures that don't NEED to eat but have gluttony.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Correct. Domkill is at dom2 levels again. Before the fix ermor had lower domkill than LA R'lyeh, which is silly. You could practically run Ermor as an ordinary gold based nation, which is quite unthematic.

Ermor is supposed to destroy civilizations, not build them. The lands of Ermor shall be barren and dead.
Scourge of the world, they shall have no friends.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I haven't played Ermor yet, so I'm not sure about balance considerations. If it hits them to hard something might have to be done to compensate. But I've allways thought it silly that the nation that should have the least money was the one that had a fort and a temple in every province, so at least from that point of view I applaud the change.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Hey, correct me if I'm wrong.

Growth scale gives +0.2% population per turn. This means +0.6% at Growth3 . I'm not sure, but I think there's no upper cap for province, no environment capacity. Some terrains just tend to start with more people than others, for example Swamp or Wasteland seems to have lower initial population. But from that point it's only affected by Death/Growth scale.

Apparently some nations (or their dominion) kills civilian population at alarming rate. There's pretty much no way of restoring that population reliably. That +0.6% from growth will take you nowhere. This is, I believe, consistent with the theme of the game (the end days, god wars, mortals die by thousands...). But there seems to be a consensus that Growth scale is unusually bad. There's an opportunity to make it better by simulating (simplified) laws of ecology.
How about this: Growth scale effect is 5x higher (or fixed at certain number) for provinces having population of 2000 or less. For provinces 2000-4000 , the multiplier would be 3x instead (3x of usual 0.6%). This is to simulate the fact that, in ecology (especially for animals, which are almost exlusively hunters and gatherers) population growth booms initially, and slows down as it reaches environment capacity.

What do you think about it ? This way, Growth scale could be used to at least partially regrow provinces devastated by Ermor dominion. It's not like Growth scale is very useful at the moment...

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Yeah I agree. If it weakens Ermor too much they should be improved in some other way, for example by getting stronger freespawn or a bigger starting army or something. Not more gold.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I think the domkill is now finally where it should be. I agree with those saying that Ermor should be boosted in some other way if they are now too weak. But, they were one of the most powerful late age nations before, weren't they?

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

You guys really think LA Ermor should be boosted? o.O

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Noone has said they should be boosted Foodstamp. (and yes, they were considered one of the LA powerhouses) We're just saying that IF the domkill adjustment hurts them too much, so they become in fact underpowered, they should be boosted in some other way, but the domkill adjustment should stay.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

This is from the victorious nations thread in the multiplayer forum.

Late (13)

Ermor: 4
R'lyeh: 2
Marignon: 2
Mictlan: 1
Argatha: 1
T'ien Chi: 1
Utgard: 1
Jomon: .5
Caelum: .5

Not to discount the player skill behind the nations, but the two freespawn nations make up almost 50% of the victories in MP LA games, Ermor accounts for almost 1/3rd of them alone.

Adjusting the domkill at the very least limits their diplomatic options and traditional gameplay options a little bit more. At the worst, it may bring them into line with other top tier nations. Chances are, they are still going to be the king of multiplayer and singleplayer LA play.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I'm trying a game against a bunch of impossible AI's with LA Ermor right now.

If your dominion pushes beyond your empire you don't have enough gold to build temples to push your dominion out. When my fighting took my borders beyond my dominion for a while I actually started making enough money to temple reasonably.

My idea of a fix:

I would add two spells, one that creates a dark temple and one that creates a fortress and which need death gems. This would solve the basic problem of LA Ermor not being able to afford it's buildings without making it a gold-based nation.

I would also be inclined to prevent LA Ermor from getting random events that give troops that need upkeep.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Hmm. We can already mod a death gems for a castle spell by altering the '60 red seconds' or whatever it's called blood spell.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

And there's the Earth spell too, Wizard's Tower.

Will any fortress type work to give Ermor castle-type freespawn? Or do they need an Ermorian Castle/Citadel?

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I'm pretty sure the answer is any fort will do. Also the idea of a death-based national fort spell for LA ermor sounds great.

Edit:
Perhaps it should be called... Tower of Infinte Bones

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Sounds great for Ermor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

It would have to be expensive. Otherwise you're going to see at least one fort coming up each turn, instantly, if Ermor casts the Well. But if you start making it really expensive, it could be cheaper for Ermor just to cast a Wizard's Tower instead.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I applaud the changes to Ermor. This will make Ermor more challenging and interesting to play as, and balance out the late age considerably.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I'm about to host a 12 player MP game, playing LA ermor, so I'll get a chance to test out the change properly. I tend to be a strong diplomatic, so I'll see what I can manage - I plan to offer my neighbors no temples on their boarders and to keep my pretender and profit off of border provinces, except possibly to site search.

Also keep in mind that with luck+3, which LA ermore can easily afford, there's a reasonable number of +400ish gold events, which pays for a temple or half a fort right there. And from my testing, by taxing 200% and patrolling at least the first turn (I'm assuming that against standard indies ermor will expand on turn 2, with a decent dominion, so you won't have the leader+troops to continue patrolling), you can afford almost a fort+temple based on capital income alone before it dies. I realize that that's nothing compared to what it was, but...it was pretty extreme before.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

You are going to play Ermor diplomatic? Heh. Good luck. I have been able to do it in a few MP games, but it is not easy. People love to gank Ermor early.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Militia event has already been made rare, for everyone. Flagellants could still appear, and I think the Ermorian Cultist attack is also possible, but those aren't nearly as annoying as militia. The cultists can also potentially conquer low-pd enemy provinces, from which you get income.

Ermor might also want to use Arouse Hunger, other similar rituals or fliers to capture weakly-defended provinces far from its own dominion.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I do not think ermor needs it really... maybe it would be somewhat more balanced if instead of building a temple + fort in every province you could only do it later.. after saving cash.. just like normal races

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but LA Ermor doesn't even have any units to recruit, right ? Except for independents, who are going to die soon anyway. No units to recruit means no upkeep, so you can spend ALL your gold on temples and castles.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

hmmm in my SP game (ok not as competative as MP and I'm no crack ermor player (was my first LA ermor game actuallY)) I was floating in cash really.

my conclusion:
If the change nerved Ermor a bit (and I guess it did a little) it was no more than deserved (I hope we all agree on this) and certainly not to much. So new spells to make them the nr 1 race again are not needed. They might be worse than dreamlands now.. maybe but are certainly better and 90% of the races in LA (or any age) so they are not in need of improvement.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Any fort will get you the improved longdead.
Playing around in SP, I've gotten them while sieging enemy forts in my dominion. I'm not sure that makes sense.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I think the change is in place. It is thematic for Ermor as a death nation to bring, well, death to the living. More so, I'm surprised it took so long to introduce this fix, I was completely unaware of this glitch.

Besides, that's the way Ermor was in Dom and Dom-II and it was very powerful then. In-fact, it was so powerful that it was a common practice to gang up on Ermor.

The statistics of LA Ermor's MP victories suggest that this aspect of Ermor has not changed much. Its a power house and 1 vs. 1 it should be able to crush any "living" nation (meaning most LA nations).

Suggesting to further boost Ermor seem to me quite unreasonable.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

As stated, the death dominion was restored to Dom2 levels, i.e. to where it should have been all along. It was an accidental oversight that led to the bug being introduced and as soon as KO noticed the problem in one of his own test games, it got whacked over the head with a weapon called Developer Keyboard, the Bane of Bugs.

The reason why it went so long unnoticed was probably people not paying enough attention to compare to Dom2. I know I've never played a single game with LA Ermor in Dom3. Played a few with Ashen Empire and Soul Gate in Dom2 and those killed the population off very, very fast.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I think it was noticed by QM during beta, but me and JK managed to not understand that it was there.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

For my part, I'm glad QM noticed it and that you fixed it promptly.

On a loosely related note, for quite sometime I've been thinking that it could have been cool to see a new nation added to Dominions universe that is not human and that has different mechanics than those of the human nations. Meaning a nation like LA Ermor, or R'lyeh, that has non gold economy. It doesn't have to a nation with domkill dominion but it could maybe be a nation that doesn't has little to no use for gold.

For example, an ancient race of overlords that used to subjugate and enslave lesser races is now reawakening. Their economy is base on slavery and summonable commanders and troops. Wait a sec. Isn't that similar to R'lyeh???

Well, I don't have a good example but still a new nation that plays differently would be very nice.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

I concur with WraithLord.

Perhaps an undead nation that doesn't have hordes of chaff, but a small amount of high quality units. Something similar to Necropolis, or llamabeast's TombKings, but less based on gold-recruitable units.

Thinking about the Yomi effect, and taking it a step further; Perhaps with some sort of zombie (or any unit really) that rises a few times after it's killed, before it finally is destroyed.

Even if KO is not interested, I'll probably put in the on the backburner and I'll try to tackle it in some way, at some point, maybe during the summer...

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Try Foodstamp's Cradle of Gaea nation mod. Thet nation has no recruitables and is pretty interesting.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Working out a way to do an undead nation other than the approaches taken by Ermor and Tomb Kings is tricky I think - at least, I couldn't think of another good way of doing it. Might be interesting though.

I was kind of feeling tempted to do a Vampire Counts style undead nation - all gothic and medieval-Europe-ish in feel. But I couldn't think of many interesting ways to differentiate it from Ermor. Sure the longdeads wouldn't be carrying tower shields, but I think more differences than that are needed.

Re: LA Ermor\'s Dominion Change in 3.15...
 

Something like undead Panii could work. Your other mages only exist to research and perhaps cast some minor rituals with the help of items; your Great Ones are your main battlefield power, they lead, reanimate and summon your armies, and they cast the spells your armies of chaff need to be effective, but they cost much upkeep. Dominions only has gold-based upkeep, so it doesn't really work outside of gold economy, but it could be an interesting alternative.