LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

I'm currently in a multiplayer game as LA Ermor. I have been in a fight against Ctis, and I have no idea what to do to counter his priest spam. I had lost one large army to him earlier, but it was a pyrrhic victory for him (he destroyed my army with his, but I had the immortal hero there, and he ended up killing 6 of his 7 priests in the army). Now, I had his home province sieged (it's still pretty early in the game, late year 2 so it's his only castle), and thought he'd be dropping soon. However, he just fought me off with an army that had 10 priests (mostly lizard kings and the lvl 2 guy, with a couple of the priest/magic users).

I have no idea how to stop an army that has that much banishment. In the last battle, I even had my prophet archbishop there to cast protection, but it didn't matter, My army was decimated by the time the units actually engaged.

How am I supposed to deal with this so early? Ctis has pretty much screwed himself long-term (he has only t provinces including his home fort, and is at the bottom in income, research, etc) and is still just spamming lizard kings. I can hope to get lucky again with my wraith commmander, but otherwise I don't see much I can do. Any suggestions?

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

You should be picking up some gems of other than Death? Keep him busy with your undead hordes, while you summon enough living monsters to take him out with combined forces.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

If it's just H3's, spam "Protection of the Sepulchre". You need to keep recasting it until all your undead are covered, they don't get protected until they fail their save against it.

Use more battle magic. Wailing Winds will work wonders against C'tis. Combine with Plague, Rigor Mortis, and a few Shadow Blasts.

Cast Wolven Winter on the province you will be fighting in.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

A great deal depends on your tactical position, and how much research you have. Decoys can be very helpful. Skelly spam applied by mages put in front of your army is also an excellent counter. As are the classic Ermor battlespells mentioned above.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Didn't know about protection not sticking, I guess I'll have to change his script.

And my battle magic is very low. So far my research is Tha 2 Const 4 Conj 3 or something similar. Ctis has been recruiting almost exclusively priests.

I'll try to switch up my research a bit, and until then just try to evade his main army. Would repeatedly suiciding my immortal hero into his guys do any good? I don't know if the other battle was a fluke, but he pretty much solohandedly ruined Ctis' last deep foray into my territory.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

It might do some good but remember that immortals are only immortal in provinces with your dominion in them.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Etimmu can summon ghosts, if memory serves, which should be decently resistant to banishment. It's only one a turn IIRC. If you do send him into melee, the fear-causing helmet would be a nice touch. If his priests are busy doing Sermon of Courage, they're not busy banishing.

Lizard Kings need a temple and money; if you raid, setting taxes to 200% and pillaging whenever given the chance, they'll contribute less to his economy even if you need to vacate the province. So would infiltrating Black Servants w/ Bane Venom Charms, if you've got the gems.

I'm across the country from my manual right now, so I can't look up the research requirements, but if your Dusk Elders can cast AOE morale-dropping spells, that may help clear a path through whatever screen (predator lizards, say) that he's put up.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

I don't think priests respond to Fear by casting Sermon of Courage--at least, I've never seen them do so--and it only takes a couple of turns to Sermon of Courage the whole army anyway.

I do second the call for battlemagic. Depends upon what you've researched, but as time goes on the purpose of Ermorian chaff units is to screen for cavalry and get enemies to clump up so you can hit them with Shadow Blast/Cloud of Death/Banefire/etc.

-Max

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

You should have several armies available to you. Hit him in a lot of places at once- that should put a dent. Push your dominion at him as well- it should be cold and death, which will weaken his lizards. You should have plenty of temples anyways for freespawn- start preaching and raiding.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Ctis is hard with their great priest to defeat via direct battle.

Push life eating dominion on him. Send bane venom charms to eat population. Shades with baneblades. Time is on your side.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

But *IS* time on Ermor's side? Ermor has essentially a finite amount of gold because of pop death (except for mines and alchemizing gems). If C'tis takes out an Ermorian temple, Ermor can't replace it. I have no experience with Ermor but I'm surprised they're not under time-pressure.

-Max

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Well, true but Ermor doesn't have a lot of recruiting expenses so he can capitalize his gold :D

Also one could play the big card of going with Turm-3 (after all Order will become useless almost as soon as your dominion spreads, and it WILL spread) Luck-3, so you should still get some money events :)

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

As Tifone said, plus Ermor's temples should all be in their heartland and pretty well forted, which makes it incredibly hard to destroy them, especially compared to the ease with which pillaging, over-taxing and dominion effects will destroy the income of a province...Ermor wins the raiding game.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

By the way, I've never tried this but I expect Pythium to be Ermor's worst nightmare. Communions boost H, and banishment scales really well with H and costs zero fatigue, so a big battle could feature 10-20 H7 or H8 Theurgs.

-Max

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Mind Fire nations. Thau7 F6 = Purgatory. Also the (quite rightly) overlooked Second Sun, many fire spells becoming more effective in hot temperatures and most undeads don't have fire resistance - some even fire weakness, so it can be useful to cast this if the gems are available (IIRC CBM good for this, reduces requirements of the global).

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Am I overlooking something obvious? Why doesnt he just recruit like 60-90 indy archers/xbows? I know that Ermor dominion kills pop, but surely he must have captured provinces which still have resources. With archers firing over a chaff shield of undead, you'd think they would be quite effective for the tech level of the game he is describing...

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

This is probably my best bet. Unfortunately, it's only turn 20, and I haven't started recruiting indies yet, and most of my provinces are allready crappy in terms of gold generation/resource generation. Plus, the supply factor.

The situation is this-Ctis has spend I would guess around 18 of his 20 turns recruiting some sort of priest (maybe even every turn). The kings have reanimated tomb chariots for most of his army (along with some purchased guys, of course).

Earlier, he had two armies and was attacking into my territory, but I cut him off, and essentially destroyed his main armies and a lot of kings with my domain+hero. The problem now is that when I went to attack his castle (he's down to 2 provinces, one right next to his home fort and his home fort), I ran into another army also attacking. I won, but that took a huge chunk out of my forces. Ctis then sent his 12 priests and chariots out, and banished my army away, breaking the siege. I need to know how to get through him castling, since he's still gonna be getting new troops from reanimation. I'm afraid to turn away and start another war, simply because I don't want to try fighting 2 fronts, one with an army that's about 5x as useful against me as anyone else. The other person who mightve took the fort lost too much in his battle against me (my message was late) so has turned away.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Sure, now there's only the problem of not being in the same age. I guess an MA Ermor player will summon a lot of chaff, but you still have normal legion forces and it certainly isn't on the same scale. Also, now nature for supply items.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Troops from reanimation he gets,
yours with Unholy Command spam become ;)

Also Enchantment 4 you get,
Behemoth you summon,
chariots now squish cannot,
chariots the squished are
(if behemoths banished are not) :D
(Also Crusher if Earth you have,
at Const5 close it is
to your Const4)

IMHO decoys you need,
To the banishment spam go to,
And your flankers their mages get.
(The more alive the better,
But undead cavalry also will work if
decoys you have)

Shadow Bolt and Blast
Also help you might.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Quick, someone call a priest! Possessed by the spirit of Yoda, Tifone has been. Exorcise him we must!

Also, my advice is to build forts and temples everywhere you can. And summon arch bishops to reanimate longdead horsemen. If you can get on top of his capital again, preach on it with your priests and try to domkill him while your armies just accumulate on top of the fort. Otherwise attacking him in the capital will probably require thugs, summons, or indies.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Yoda for Pretender 2009!! :D

He will have problems domkilling if C'tis has so many priests. But you're right, he still totally needs to expand his dom (which I hope he took at 10 and very very cold). And to recruit a bunch of alive indie or merc cavalry (best if heavy) to get those mages busy with the undead.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

I didn't think Ermor's priests could preach.

-Max

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

They can't preach.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Oops. Well, the arch bishops are still useful for making longdead horsemen but I guess in that case you can't really rely on them.

Re: LA Ermor vs. mass priests
 

Undead priests can't preach, but Ermor can in general.