Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Hi all,

I came to dominions few weeks ago, and now comes the time of my very first MP game. I'm openning this thread to ask for advice, tips, noob mistake to avoid etc...

The MP game I'm engage in was not initiated in this forum, yet the other participants might read this board.

The game will be played on EA with map Cave & Corner and the nation were randomly attributed : I wil played Ermor Ashen Empire and my opponents will be Gath, Mitgard and T'ien Ch'i.

First of all, be sure that I have read the dominion KB on AE (and the threads I found here), yet I would like advises on the following points :

dominion My only question here concerns Magic scale. magic+1 is huge boost to research, in the other hand drain+2 could bring some protection to my undeads. What are the consequences of such a choice ? (from my calculations 1rp/turn cost 4D gems with drain2 and only 2.2D gems with magic1, this makes a real difference I guess).

pretender I never played a SC pretender yet, and the KB rather mention Master Lich or Queen Lich as a pretender choice. It seems the pretender has to have very strong Death magic, good astral, and... and what ? rather 2 points in each remaining path or a third strong path ?

game start I've started a few game, and my 'Build order' was :
1- pretender cast spectator (12 - 15)
2- spectator cast spectator (12 - 18)
3- pretender cast dusk elder (20 - 21)
4- spectator cast spectator (12 - 16)
5- spectator cast spectator (12 - 19)
6- spectator cast spectator (12 - 22)
7- dusk elder cast archbishop (23 - 25)
the archbishop becomes my prophet and I restart from step 1.

general questions

- should I pay attention to my undeads ? is it worth it to loose 100 of them to take a province ?

- the prophet (or maybe all archbishops ??) can revive lictors. since these units are gems expansive should I use this ability a lot ? or should I wait later spells that summons plenty of them ?

- I have the impression of never having enough gold. I always put tax to 200, I never buy PD nor recruit any troops but scoots. What should I build in priority : temples everywhere (this seems usefull since when my dominion spreads it kills indep and provinces are then easier to take) ? some additionnal castles ? (the global income felt really fast in the few games I initiate, lucky events and magic sites were the main income source)

- on the research side, should I go asap for a global enchantment such as burden times ?

- in the army setup part, is it worth it to distinguish guys with a shield and guys without ? i'm the kind of player that love ordered and organized armies, with AE I'm afraid I will have to go with huge swarm. Another point, since undead are unbreakable I try to split them in little squads (~20) just to make it easier to surround ennemies, is it good ?


I also have no experience of 'end game' (only played a few sp game that I won quite fast) no idea on how nor what items/heroe combinations are good and efficient, and worse, I have no idea of my opponent's nations strengths and weakness.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

For scales, I'd suggest everything at -3 except Magic and Luck, which go at +3, and Dominion at 10.

You don't need any production. Luck gives you the gold you need, Dominion pisses off your neighbours and keeps the undead flowing, while Magic... well, you have all those points anyway, so you might as well spend them where they'll do some good.

For your pretender, all you really need is the ability to summon a Dusk Elder - anything else is a bonus. With your strong dominion, immortality might be handy, so the Liches are perfect matches.

Any spare points go in magic paths - A point or two of additional Death, then Astral primarily, followed by Earth, Water, Fire, Nature, Air and Blood, probably but not necessarily in that order.

Your autospawn undead are mostly worthless, except as numbers. If you lose a few hundred to gain a province, great! If you lose a few hundred and fail to gain a province, that's fine, too. You probably gave someone an affliction in there somewhere, and that's plenty worthwhile.

Lictors can be reanimated, certainly, but I've never found them very awesome. Longdead Horsemen are likely to be a better choice, and I believe units with high levels of holy - like your Prophet - get quite a lot of them per turn. Interestingly, I *think* one of your random heroes starts at Holy 4, and can thus be turned to a fancy-schmancy (but not very useful) Holy 5 by making him a prophet, if you get him at a good time.

Putting your shielded troops up front when expecting archers is sensible, but often unnecessary. Feel free to do it if you have the time, though.

Mass-squad formations seems like a sensible idea.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

All that Calchet says, except I wouldn't never go blood for LA Ermor. Nowhere to get the slaves from.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

I was mucking around with LA Ermor recently in SP. I agree with Calchet that all your scales should be at -3 except Luck (+3) and magic (0 to +3). Dom 10 is also pretty much a requirement.

The magic scales are a bit of an issue. Needing to summon commanders and mages is a big distraction on your mage time, so I would tend to recommend positive scales, otherwise you may lag behind your opponents. On the other hand, with a healthy gem income you can feasibly recruit more mages because you aren't constrained by build queue restrictions. You will probably struggle to recruit indy mages due to financial constraints.

You definitely need an awake pretender with at least D3. You could try magic scales at 0 or +1 and take a rainbow pretender with at least 2 in each path except blood (which should be ignored as stated above). I'd look at maybe astral to 4+, air and fire to 3 if you have free points. The minute you start conquering provinces and have summoned your first Dusk Elder, get your pretender out manually site-searching for a while, as with all those paths it's more efficient than casting spells.

This should give you a big gem income quite quickly. Gems could be converted to death gems so you can summon more early on (hence the magic scales not being so critical), although that's a judgement call. By the time you reach Construction 4, use your rainbow pretender to forge equipment your very limited mages can't. Boosters can make your dusk elder random picks useful. Your pretender can also summon mages in other paths like Naiads, Troll Kings, Fairy Queens, Golems and so on to further boost diversity.

You provisional build queue looks good. I'd reanimate longdead with weak priests, and longdead cavalry with better ones. I don't think you can build enough lictors to make them effective. You should spawn undead leaders in your provinces, you can use these guys to round up undead spawn and push them to your armies at the front without having to summon more undead commanders. Also note that your priests can lead large undead armies. As you'll want to add Ermor's special blesses to your troops, never summon commanders like the censors, only the priests.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Lictors are nice, if you can manage some kind of a useful bless for them, otherwise the massive numbers of longdead horse will fill your enemies with more fear.

ONLY build castles at first. Build temples in your most secure territories ONLY once there is a castle there. There are two reasons for this. The first is that you get Ermorian troops in your castles, which are far and away better than the other crap (they would be awesome troops, if it weren't for Banish). The other reason is that you want to have some territories that are not fully under your dominion for awhile at first, to milk for cash to build more castles with. You seriously want a castle in every single province that you own, as fast as you can afford it.

Personally I don't summon Spectators (well, I get *2* of them to put on monthly Dark Knowledge once I research it), you will want as many Dusk Elders as you can get your hands on, they are slightly less gem efficient, but vastly more useful otherwise. Also get at least 1 Arch Bishop into every important army, to buff your undeads' magic resist, it will cut down your rate of attrition significantly.

And don't worry about your losses. In general, every undead you lose, you get back for free the next turn, your enemy's losses will cost him gold. ;)

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Thanks for all your answers !

hm I never thought of 'delaying' my dominion in order to get more gold. Pb with this apporach is that the number of spawns directly depends on the dominion... yet gold was such an issue in my test games that I'll consider this opportunity. (and as you said, Ermorian troops are far better, it might be a way to expand faster from turn ~10 and clear most of my area).

I dont know if you have knowledge of the map, but its a small one and with Ermor I am able to have my area cleared around turn 25 ; beyond that point any new conquest will be considered as an hostile move I fear. In my experience of strategic mp games, beeing the first to strike an ennemy is no good idea since it costs time and resources (well, AE units are resourceless, but they do not spawn in infinite number each turn, a unit loss is still a loss) and offers other players the opportunity to backstab the attacker.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Magic 1 sounds like a more reasonable option. Remember that it also lowers your MR, at magic3 you make nice gift to enemy banishers.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

As an alternative to not pushing your income, one thing I did in a game as ermor was to take my provinces where I had a large gold income and set taxes to 200 and patrol. Getting me money and corpses at the same time. I figured the patrolling would probably kill off less than my dominion would, and that way you get a pretty big temporary boost to your gold income. In the long run most of your income is probably going to come from the 3 luck you hopefully have, getting you some of those gold/silver mines.

With ermor you have a fairly large advantage over any given player you're going to attack. More than them being limited by gold, they're limited by resources as to how many units they can field. Since EVERYONE takes terrible sloth scales in mp, this means early on they're extremely vulnerable to someone who can send in multiple good-sized armies. If you lose a province, who cares? Not you, as long as you don't lose a fort or temple. Your losses do matter... vaguely. And you do have to be careful of other players, but most people would rather not attack ermor early in the game, as even if you win you won't gain much in the way of resources.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

I'm not experienced with MP, so take this advice with a grain of salt....

Wouldn't LA Ermor with Dom 10 on a small map be hostile simply by virtue of existing? Your dominion is going to kill off large sections of the map in a big hurry. If I were one of your opponents, I'd make killing you into a top priority.....

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

In my current MP games:
prod3: 1 (Marverni)
prod2: 1 (Marignon)
neutral: 1 (Ulm)
sloth1: 1 (TC)
sloth2: 1 (C'tis)
sloth3: 3 (Abysia, R'lyeh, Mictlan)

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

From my understanding AE is clearly a primary target, for everyone. Unless complaisant arrangements on temple locations and dominion spreading can be found no player would accept to see AE growing on his side. Yet as rdonj pointed, attacking AE early is all about loss : units, time, resources, there nothing to gain and a lot to loose.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Yes, high Dom makes you a major target for extermination. On the other hand, you get a huge defensive advantage, in that anyone who invades you risks starvation, and for their efforts gets a wasteland with no gold, albeit some gems. Thus there's always the chance some of your opponents might be reluctant to tangle with you and leave it to someone else. You could also try to plant temples away from some enemies in order to reduce the chance your Dom encroaches on them.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

You are really weak for the first year or so. Not so easy to kill, but not capable of much other than not dying. You want to maximize your gold income during this period, and get as many castles started (in concentric rings around your capital!) during this period as possible. Once the castles start completing, build temples in each one. By restraining the spread of your dominion at first you maximize gold income, then you translate that gold income in year two to an explosive avalanche of dominion that will swallow any who come too close.

It is absolutely critical that you get multiple new castles up before you piss anyone off - your non-castle spawns are simply garbage, they are the chaff that you use to protect your chaff.

Also, the 200% tax+patrol is brilliant for Ermor, I forgot that in my first post, thanks rdonj. <3 Tax+Patrol will net you far more income than Pillaging, even as your dominion candles stack up. If you handle the first year efficiently, you should have 4-5 castles by spring of year 2, and probably have a few more started, and potentially have a little stockpile of gold to keep things rolling even as you start stacking temples.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

thanks Jim, I guess I'll have to train for a while just on the first 2 years to improve that.

I had a serious issue in my test game : the indep mages always costed 3 up to 5 resources each (the game is to be played with CBM, I dont know if it changes something there), and I did not have that many resources in the provinces they were found. Therefore I was unable to recruit any of them :'(

In my test game I'm now around the end of year 4, I've cast burden of times quite early (I had a magic site that gives +20 to enchantments, so I decided to use this strong bonus) and it seems it was worth the cost. I've launch a serious assault on one of the AI, but this had terrible consequences on my research (I did take 1/3 of my mages to support the army, and since i'm very limited in researchers...).
Theres a skull that boost research (+9 ?) for 10 gems, I should use it more (by far the best gems/rp turn ratio I can get). Does it have any drawbacks ? (in a nother game with marignon I use to build lots of fire research boost +6 but it horror marked all my mages)

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

If you have even 1 resource, the mage will be recruited eventually. Resources are collected over time if units in queue demand more than the province can provide.
Provinces with 0 resources, from total pop-death or from being surrounded by castles with very high total admin rate, can't recruit anything, but even 1 resource is enough to recruit one mage every few turns.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

I'm pretty sure this is innacurate. Are you certain of that ?

edit : my memory from the manual "number of forges blabla number of forgerons blabla"

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

A province with 0 population still has 2 resources unless it is bordered by a castle of yours with non-zero admin (Ermorian castles have zero admin). For some reason a single 50-admin fort drops resources from 2 to 0, instead of 1.

Endoperez is totally correct that if you recruit units in a province without enough resources, eventually the unit will be made. I think I waited 4 months for a Fire Lord to pop out of a lab once.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Endo is right. Any province with non-zero resources will eventually produce everything in its queue. It may take months to recruit a single Mage with only 1 resource, but it will happen.

Unless ... the province drops to 0 resources before recruitment is complete.

Or ... the unrest in the province rises over 100. If that happens, recruitment will stop until the unrest is handled.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

If you don't believe it, make a game with 3Sloth, and the first province you find with indie commanders that cost more resource than the province gets, buy one. You should get him quite shortly.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

ok ok I believe you all :) but since resources do not stack I simply thought it was not the case. thats a good news for me anyway !

My apologies to Endoperez :o

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

No problem. It doesn't show up anywhere in-game, after all, and mistakes happen.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

I have another question : theres an item (champion skull) which description says : "by wearing this, one will become a seasoned warrior in no time"

what does that mean ? :)

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

It gives you a few experience points every month. It's not worth actually forging one.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

The Champion Skull will give experience points to the commander who carries it. Not a huge amount, but a steady trickle every month.

I don't think the Skull is so great. Most of my commanders seem to earn plenty of experience on their own, and I always have other uses for my Death mages & gems. But feel free to try it for yourself!

Edit: Ninja'd by vfb that time. Wow, y'all are fast! :)

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Hmm, I have used it to build up experience on commanders with gateway.
It's only 5 gems after all and two stars can go a long way for some mages.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

hm it can be great for those researchers with 1 star that will never fight so they can get a second star no ?
by the way thanks for the answer :)

And I had another question, I'm currently designing my pretender and still I got a big hesitation between Magic1 and Drain2. Something like an idea came to me : if I take Drain2 and uses the extra points to add magic points to my pretender. Then I make him research for the first 15 turn (except 1 of thoose turns when he will have to revive a dusk elder) the time to reach Const4 and then spam the item that gives research bonus to my mages and send my pretender for site searching (a d4 dusk elder should already have started to search death sites).

Is this kind of viable ? or will it delay for too long the evo/conj/tha research.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

I would never go drain with Ermor. I think Magic 3 is vital. I find keeping up with research to be one of the biggest problems for Ermor, because it's usually easier to get up the gold for castles/labs and buy mages than it is to get the gems to pop more out. To get two dusk elders a turn, you need 40 (unless you got a conj site for a discount). And that's also spending your gems on nothing but your two mages.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

It can add to research, yes, but it's not 'great'. It sucks compared to a skull mentor or even owl quill because it takes so long and the effect is so small. Given infinite time and infinite mages it will beat both of them, admittedly.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

magic3 is also -2 MR in dominion. (drain2 is +1 MR) thats a 3MR gap for my chaff, in my dominion. I cant imaginate how to win any battle with such a low MR.

my idea was to get skull mentors asap to 'erase' the -1rp / turn.

Look : whatever magic scale I take I will be very limited in mage number. the +/- 1 research from magic scales as a huge impact when one got lots of mages, but a limited one when you got only few of them.

I may be totaly wrong, again, but in my mind taking this limited negative impact and getting the design point + MR bonus is a good deal.

a dusk elder is 6 base research isnt it ?

it cost 20 gems for dusk elder + 3 gems with hammer for skull mentor == 23 gems
magic3 (-120 pts) 8, with reseach skull 17 -> 1.35 gems / rp
magic1 (-40 pts) 7, with reseach skull 16 -> 1.43 gems / rp
magic0 (0 pts) 6, with reseach skull 15 -> 1.53 gems / rp
drain2 (+80 pts) 5, with reseach skull 14 -> 1.64 gems / rp
drain3 (+120 pts) 4, with reseach skull 13 -> 1.76 gems / rp


a spectator is 3 base research isnt it ?

it cost 12 gems for a spectator + 3 gems with hammer for skull mentor == 15 gems
magic3 (-120 pts) 5, with reseach skull 14 -> 1.07 gems / rp
magic1 (-40 pts) 4, with reseach skull 13 -> 1.15 gems / rp
magic0 (0 pts) 3, with reseach skull 12 -> 1.25 gems / rp
drain2 (+80 pts) 2, with reseach skull 11 -> 1.36 gems / rp
drain3 (+120 pts) 1, with reseach skull 10 -> 1.5 gems / rp


so with drain 2 if I use spectators equiped with mentor skull early on for research I still got quite a good gems / rp conversion.

edit another note :
the base conversion rate is better for duskelder (20 gems, 5 research -> 4 gem / rp) rather than spectators (12 gems, 2 reseach -> 6 gem / rp). So I would summon mainly duskelder until I reach const4.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Skull Mentors are 10 gems -> 7 w/hammer.

I'm not sure how that changes the calculation.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Man, I wish Skull Mentors were 5D, but they are 10D (so 7D with hammer).

Still, as much as it pains me to admit it, you are probably just better off with 2D, against a skilled opponent. This places you more on the defensive though, with less mages in total no matter what you do. On the other hand, you can afford a bit more magic on your pretender, opening up extra options.

Honestly I think Magic scale is your hardest build choice for LA Ermor. Consider that you won't always be fighting in your dominion, and it all gets so complicated.....

(You'll not thwart me again, THEJEFF! :shock:)

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

ok I'll do it again then (tks I dont have dominion here, and I dont know all the item cost/effects yet :( )

a dusk elder is 6 base research isnt it ?

it cost 20 gems for dusk elder + 7 gems with hammer for skull mentor == 27 gems
magic3 (-120 pts) 8, with reseach skull 17 -> 1.58 gems / rp
magic1 (-40 pts) 7, with reseach skull 16 -> 1.68 gems / rp
magic0 (0 pts) 6, with reseach skull 15 -> 1.8 gems / rp
drain2 (+80 pts) 5, with reseach skull 14 -> 1.92 gems / rp
drain3 (+120 pts) 4, with reseach skull 13 -> 2.07 gems / rp


a spectator is 3 base research isnt it ?

it cost 12 gems for a spectator + 7 gems with hammer for skull mentor == 19 gems
magic3 (-120 pts) 5, with reseach skull 14 -> 1.35 gems / rp
magic1 (-40 pts) 4, with reseach skull 13 -> 1.46 gems / rp
magic0 (0 pts) 3, with reseach skull 12 -> 1.58 gems / rp
drain2 (+80 pts) 2, with reseach skull 11 -> 1.72 gems / rp
drain3 (+120 pts) 1, with reseach skull 10 -> 1.9 gems / rp



hmmm I think i'm gonna do an excel sheet for those calculations... do you know if quill and mentor skull effects do stack ?

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Yes, they do stack. Lightless Lanterns (Constr 6, F1) would also stack if you had mages with three misc slots.

Because your pretender isn't out searching, you don't have the gems to forge Dwarven Hammers and every Skull Mentor costs full 10 gems. This might change if you took Forge Lord pretender, but I don't know if La Ermor can take him.

I agree with JimMorrison, it is a really difficult choice.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

IIRC, magic scales don't actually lower MR. So you wouldn't be getting any negatives there.

And I don't like relying too much on skull mentors with LA Ermor because death gems are essentially your whole economy. To get any commanders worth anything you either need to get lucky finding sites.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Only the first few Mentors will need to be forged without hammers. As soon as you find enough Earth sites, the pretender returns and make one. Hammers from then on.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Lightless lantern as a downside effect (horror mark). and its Const6, long after the quill and the mentor skull.

@alansmithee : no ! mentor skull are vital to ermor because it decrease greatly the (death gem / rp) ratio, so a mage researching without a skull mentor is a waste.

@endoperez : youre correct ! in my test game I had no difficulty to get those early earth gems, but my pretender start searching very early... damn !! well if I am lucky I could get an E1 dusk elder and search with him, otherwise I guess I will have to change my plans and site search with my pretender anyway.

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/697...chgems2nd4.jpg

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

In my experience, the downside on Lightless Lantern is negligible. In a recent game, I had about 40 of them and lost all of 2 mages to Horrors - a price well worth the paying.

Oh, and you get a better death gem/rp ratio with Lanterns than Mentors. Sure, mentors give a better total gem/rp ratio, but you have an awful lot of stuff you want to spend death gems on.

Btw, for pure efficiency in research, revenants are 3 gems cheaper than spectators and you might want to use them when you have them researched.

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Magic-1 is far and away the way to go, since early on is when it is most critical to maximize your RP. M-3 is a possibility, but I prefer to put the extra points into my pretender, and the MR for RP tradeoff isn't as neat when it's 1 for 1 instead of 1 for 2 (drain 2 to magic 1)

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

But surely the benefit offered by magic 1 early on isn't actually that great, as you have a serious lack of mages?

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

yes lantern are better, but they are Const6.

I've just performed a test game, Const4 can be reached on turn 14 with only 4 research turns from a rainbow pretender (he had 23rp). I dont want to loose more time in construction, dooing this I had Conj5 thau6 evo5 ench5 alt3 const4 (well I went all magic path because I simply dont know what to research) by turn 35 (+burden of time and foul air up). I dont know if this sounds good, yet it was enough to get rid of the mighty AIs (I set indep strength to 8 and it seems it was definitly too high for them ^^)

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

Is it actually, hah (blush :doh:) a stupid idea to sell your fire and earth gems to build more castles ?

Just a theorical question of course ! :D

Oh, by the way, you get sacred for free : knight of sepulcre. But they are lifeless : no regen possible. Still I feel like puting them on reserve to use when really needed. Stacks of 80 sacred out of the air !
I wonder if that's reason enough to try a blessing for ermor (after all you have lots of points ?). A little astral for MR, death for afflication ?

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

The rule of thumb is that alchemising for money is a Bad Thing.

OTOH Ermor can get themselves serious cashflow issues with little to no effort, so I can see why you might want to do this.

The free sacreds are nice, but I think they're still essentially chaff. S on your pretender is normally a valid choice, so I could see a minor bless being beneficial. And of course D4 isn't exactly unlikely on an Ermor pretender anyway. So why not?

Re: Some questions on LA Ermor
 

While most of the advice in this thread is good, I would suggest reading Velusion's Ermor Stregy guide before playing them it in MP. While the guide might be a little out of date the concepts are completely valid and nessesary for Ermorian victory. I have used those guidelines to acheive status as a major world power as Ermor, and you can too. This is the link:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=35061