Guide to EA Ermor

Decided to get a (proto)guide for Ermor, based mainly on SP but should be better than the current non-existent ones. Will definitely update it, the strategy part is not really developed.

Units:

Slinger, 7g2r: Standard cheap missile unit with mapmove 1. Recruiting tribal archers instead is a much better option - unless in emergency.
Leve, 10g8r: standard spear+javelin light infantry, resource cheap so massable but the same gold as several other units. In CBM their 8g cost make them a really good option, recruit them until you get enough resources in the capital
Accensus, Rorarus, Hastatus: three different medium infantry that neither offer much over the Leve (tower shield, somewhat higher protection), nor significantly cheaper than the principe for their inferior stats.
Principe, 15g16r: great medium infantry, with higher scores across the board, for 16/15 damage and 16 defence. The tower shield make the unit effectively immune to missile fire, and still has a mapmove of 2. No reason not to recruit them.
Triarius: mapmove 1 old-age heavy infantry you won't recruit
Lizard Auxiliare, 10g11r: another good option, to fight in swamps or facing poison. Their morale of 9 could be taken care by Sermon of Courage/Fanaticism or by a Standard leader (Legatus Legionis)
Gladiators: IMO not worth it due to their one-battle lifespan
Equite, 40g18r: usual overpriced light lance+hoof light cavalry, you'd recruit them in CBM as they are cheaper
Equite of the Sacred Shoud, 65g20r: capital-only overpriced holy recuperating medium cavalry, and you won't have more than a minor bless for them.

Good medium/heavy infantry overall, great facing archers, but the lack of versatility make Ermor units inferior to TC IMO (with composite bows and great cavalry).

Commanders

Scout: the usual stuff
Assasin, 60g4r: +25 stealth makes him a better option, but you need to kit him up a lot in order to have chance in assassinations - unlike the LA C'tis Empoisoners
Centurion, Legatus Legionis: A unit that can be substituted by indie commanders with no loss of utility, not thuggable either - the latter at least have 120 leadership and a Standard(10), which would help your Lizard troops
Acolyte, 40g1r: Cheap H1 priest that you do not really have any reason to recruit

Now comes the good stuff...

Flamen, 120g1r: F1H1+100%FAWEN: Holy priest-mage for affordable research, which is also a good battlemage. F2 for fire evocations and Augury, FE for magma bolts, FW for Acid bolt/rain (w. boosters), FN to make Fever Fetish, FA should stay in labs to research.
Pontifex, 120g2r:F1H2. Can lead 45 troops and offer a limited battlefield support with Fire darts/Sermon of Courage/Banishment, should use with a fire booster. Recruitable everywhere H2 mage with added versatility, put them in lab when not in combat support.
Augur, 80g1r: F1S1. Your other cheap researcher that functions as a communion slave for your Augur Elders. The only drawback is that they are prone to die in long battles, when the latter decide to cast Death magic starting turn 6. Could be used in linebacker communions as well. Also 5% fortune telling. Cheaper for research than the Elders.
Augur elder, 250g1r. F2S1D2+110%FASD. Old age mages, good to quickstart initial reseach. Your other combat mage, to throw the really powerful battle evocations (Fire *, Nether bolts, shadow blasts).
Their major advantage is being recruitable everywhere, and offering access to lvl 3 fire/death magic. Skellispam is also an option to wear down the opponent. Consider Twiceborning them, esp. if you have access to Enchantment sites. Only 1 S3 in 25, so you most probably would Empower one of the younger or twiceborn S2 ones in S and E to get to the rings.
Bishop of the Sacred Shroud: Capital-only H2 with marginal healing ability. No reason to recruit them, really.
Archbishop of the Sacred Shroud: Capital-only H3, Healer, old age somewhat compensated by recuperation ability. Great access to H4 and Fanaticism.

National heroes:
Gladiator Champion (multi): thug chassis with ambidexterity and two additional 1dmg (AN) affliction attacks, 18HP
Sauromancer: As if your access to high-level Death magic were lacking
Primate: A H4 priest that spreads dominion like a Prophet, there's not many like that, H4 also means +2 penetration for Banish and +4 AoE.
Pontifex Maximus: F2S2H3, nothing that you were lacking.

There are some good news in the list, especially the very strong battlefield evocations, but there are so many weaknesses to be listed. Ermor lacks recruitable troops that could remain useful in mid-late game (or even against early rushes), and that there are very limited battlefield buffs that your recruitable mages can cast (unlike, well, almost everyone else). You also lack national summons, or blood magic to help with the lack of 20HP-ish massable units. So you have no middle game whatsoever.
You have no access to higher-level WAEN either, and, this must be addressed with the pretender. It have to be emphasized that pretender must be designed with the weak mid-game in focus - your strategy is more or less determined by this. I.e. rush getting into Late Game to overcome this weakness.

So what options are available for mid-game units?

Fire/Astral: well, not much available, but you have the gems for it (fetish). Fire drake, Scorpion Beast, Summer Lion. Or the late game Astral Summons.
Blood. Get an awake blood pretender, start hunting after initial expansion to empower a few hunters, then spine devil/bone fiend/devil/serpent fiend. At least you have good research to afford blood research. Might have to do it anyways, if your death income is not what you expected.
Death. You lack of initial death gems necessitates manual site search, which might (or might not) provide gems for your troop needs. In CBM the Lord of Rebirth is the perfect pretender for this strategy - starting EN paths which Ermor lacks, with 2N2D gem income per turn. Your main problem is that you have to use the expensive Augur Elders for everything, and wights are summoned one at a time. Shadow beasts are Ethereal. Bane Lords are the obvious thugs, kit them out how you can depending on your site search. You might want to prophetize a Black Servant /Bane Lord to reanimate dead.

Scales
You need money. A lot of it, as your Augur Elders are not Sacred - O3. You need to build a starting army, OTOH you don't have resource-heavy troops (15 for the Principe).
S1 is needed if your God is not a SC right away, otherwise S2 or even S3 - Ermor itself is a Great city with 60 Administration, but that might force you to recruit independents in greater number.
I prefer to maximize the heat/cold scales and use it to pay for Growth 3 - to compensate for the supply and gold loss. Personal preferences may vary, Augur Elders can be recruited anywhere if they are getting diseased from old age.
Luck/Misfortune: Both Augurs are Soothsayers to mitigate bad events at your cities, and your PD should be able to deal with barbarian invasions (if not with Troglodytes). OTOH Luck and Magic would help a lot with random gem income.
M1 is recommended as you don't have gems for Skull Mentors or even Owl quills, relying on Augur Elders for research until getting Lanterns might be too long, and you should not be desperate for design points anyways.

Dominion: in general, low-to-moderate dominion is fine (4-7) with an awake pretender, as you have recruitable-everywhere H2 priests for preaching, unless you rely on Autospawn units.

Pretender: your lack of medium-sized troops calls for an SC pretender, but you need either E or N on your pretender (preferably both). You also have healers available. A Rainbow would not be useless, either, as your infantry is strong. Options, with the above-mentioned strategies. You need no bless either, with a single not so spectacular sacred units, or mainly non-sacred battlemages.

In CBM, your best option for pretender is perhaps an Awake Lord of Rebirth, Dom 4, E4D3N3 (or similar combinations), with O3S2H3G3L1M1 (my preference at least).
Any Rainbow to address the deficiencies, or a Forge lord with at least E3S3N3 to forge boosters (and you will need them). Sleep the pretender for better scales/more magic.

Early Research
Alt-1/2/3 (Barkskin/Stoneskin/Body Ethereal, Ironskin) for the self-buffing SC.
Evoc-3 (fireball/magma bolts) if you get in early wars and against tougher indies.
Thau-1 for communion.
You have to site search manually for DEN with your pretender anyways, your Augur elders search lvl 2-3 in FSD (plus air). Send an Archbishop or your prophet with them to find Holy sites.
Next step depends on whatever units you want to rely on. Blood if have to make a side trip that way.
You will have to rely on Tartarians late game anyways, so get either GoH or the Chalice, with your researchers it should not be impossible. The only problem is you cannot really rush a single path and not remain vulnerable, and GoH would be most probably grabbed by a Nature nation (with Lord of Rebirth you might have a chance for it).

Strategy outline
I'd build your second castle ASAP (turn 4-5) but no need to hurry after. Build Fortified cities on high-pop farmlands for income (admin 50). Your nice recruitable-everywhere researchers are expensive anyways. Fortify only chokepoints or nice indie provinces. Initially recruit Augur Elders to get a headstart in research.
If you see a Jade Amazon province get them, it would give you access to W2 and N2 randoms (WN+25%WEDN random).
Due to the lack of easily available buffs you have to rely on evocation to win battles, even later.
Delegate a few mages to help your early expansion parties depending on your evocation research.
Yout access to F and D allows you to go for Flame Arrows (with indie archers) and Skellispam. The latter can be augmented with Sulphur Haze (from FA flamens/elders).

Re: LA Ermor Guide
 

Can you edit your title?

Cuz I don't think you're talking about LA ermor ;)

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

:o :doh:
Who was speaking of LA Ermor?

;)

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

No one, why? :p

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

EA Ermor does have healers, more than one I think, so growth 3 isn't needed.

I don't think they fear an early rush any more than C'tis, if you get a lil bit of evocation and enchantment you're the one that's gonna be attacking.
They can get fire/air for sulphur haze which goes great with skelly spam.

Heat 3 will fatigue out your already old mages that you rely on.
Misfortune seems reasonable with fortune telling and not so good national heroes.

As for troops, I'd rely on indie archers with flaming arrows backed up with heavy evocation.

Once you get to mid*late part of the game pretty much most troops became useless, except jags, or Giants.

They can expand even with sloth since they start in a Great City, admin 60. You can expand pretty fast even with C'tis with sloth 3. Having 2-3 commanders casting smite makes a huge difference, just go for heavy cavalry or any other strong but few in number province, buy a couple slingers put in front till you smite them all.

If CBM I'd go for a rainbow pretender, probably druid to site search from the start, E W D S N, if not than Lord of Rebirth to cover earth/nature, and get some more death for tartarians and he also makes a great SC with alteration.

Well... that's sort of how I'd play them.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

I'm guessing by "Hastatus: mapmove 1 old-age heavy infantry you won't recruit" you actually mean Triarii...

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Healers don't cure old age afflictions. But G3 is not required due to another reason - Death mages rarely get diseased from old age and other afflictions rarely matter for mages.
Yes - to no Heat3, indie archers + Flaming Arrows, Sloth (Great City is really great). Most probably though if you don't take awake SC (I really don't see why EA Ermor would need it) you'll have to take Sloth 1.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Thats pretty much how I play them to Exe.

Agree: Flame arrows, indy archers.
Disagree about the commanders. Ermors mages are solid, recruitable everywhere. One of the commanders (at least) has a solid standard bonus which more than makes up for the deficient morale of the lizard troops and/or leve's etc.

Research & gem hunting are key for this position. As has been noted you have no middle game.

Don't sweat the Growth/death. With 50ish elders, I've only had 6? get diseased.

Unless you are playing a late version of CBM, the multihero / hero's for ermor are broken (they do not get the affliction causing special attacks). And they are entirely useless.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Thanks for the comments, I'll update the first post.

A few notes about scales.
Severe Heat/cold gives +2 encumberance, which hurts low enc units more than Augur Elders with say +2 age penalty (total comes at 7=3+2+2).
Growth gives more gold in the long term, and Ermor will need that gold. I won't pick Death though, due to the income penalties.
Misfortune - possible, I agree. Augurs compensate somewhat, 20 in a city would prevent any bad events, and a PD of 10 should cope with Barbarian attacks. Which PD is really nice, a Pontifex at 20PD to cast Sermons of Courage.
However, luck and magic give you a lot of gem events, and there are people (including me) who prefer to play with Luck scales if possible.
Indeed, in the newest CBM the Master of the Games has two additional 1dmg AN attacks that cause afflictions (eyeloss and chest wound) for a total of four attacks, making a nice 18HP thug.
Then in the game I'm playing I suddenly got two more heroes, a Primate (H4, Heal40 and spreads dominion like a prophet!) plus a Pontifex Maximus F2S2H3, the latter is more or less redundant but of course nice to have.
I missed Fire Arrows, blame on my lack of experience (and usually playing SP with non-missile strategy troops).

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Didn't know that, never used healers doe.
And Cris is right, so what if you get a few Elders diseased in the long run, they are recrutable everywhere.
I think C'tis and Ermor are similar in many ways, but still love C'tis much more.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

My summary of Ermor goes along these lines:

I regard EA ermor as incredibly thematic. They *have* to fail to result in MA/LA Ermor. And so they do - their soothsayers
have only 1 S. Which is an incredibly difficult to bootstrap.

They lack Earth/Water/Nature/Air access, except on a single ? basis. No blood access.

No thugs. Difficult to boost to S3 for gateway.

Their (slim) pluses: Great troops. Good Site searchers. Good research.

Site search the hell out of everything. Plan on death/fire for thugs.

Your troops / mages are strong enough to deter an early rush. Terror / Prison of Fire
I think you need a rainbow pretender to cover your magic deficiencies. Save the points - put him to sleep.

Income really isn't a problem for Ermor - its easy to overspend on forts. Instead, put forts in choke locations and after that stick everything into mages.

Your elders can hit four schools (Death, fire, astral air) on manual searches. Plan on manual site searching - and ignore thau initially.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Don't EA Ermor actually do really well? It says in the nation history they conquered almost the whole world before they collapsed into the MA death cult with Pythium and Marignon splitting away.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Yeah, Ermor is Rome (almost an anagram) and they are meant to conquer most of the world. Where decadence in real life just lead to Rome collapsing, in Ermor it leads to the death cult.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Yep. however, the weaknesses in the national history (the mistakes of the augurs) etc really do show up in game play - so much so that I don't believe they've ever won an EA MP.

Of course that has a lot to do with who else is in EA- Niefle, Mictlan, Helheim, Vanheim, Sauromatia....

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Updated it at last with the suggestions.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to minimize attrition while expanding with the national troops? They seem good enough to take most Indies as long as they are re-enforced each turn, like when clearing the capital's neighbouring provinces out. But I can't find a way to do the preferred 'go and conquer in that direction' expansion with them.

So the challenge is.....

Ignoring Pretender build, and using CBM, can you find a way of expanding with any mix of 40 (the Indy commander leadership) non-sacred troops, with no mage/cleric support, and without taking above 20% attrition rates. Your army is also limited to about 400-450 resources.

Have tried all the usual archer decoys, side stacking etc, but nothing seems to work reliably. Also not the biggest fan of relying on Indy archers, since finding a large reliable source is just pot luck, and stopping to recruit them delays expansion.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

One thing you could try is just recruiting the basic Alai legionairres. Sure some will die, but they're so cheap that you can just recruit a big load on the first turn and then send them off good for a few turns. The javelins they throw help a lot, with the large number of troops you'll have you can often reduce the enemy numbers substantially even before contact.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

I'd go for the Leve, 8 gold 8 res. for the first couple of provinces, and puch in some cavalry on turn 3-4.
Avoid heavy cavalry, go for barberians, deep and beer tribe warriors/achers, light infantry and other indie types that can't hold the javelins.
As for archers,
Put 5 of them in front and order guard commander, they'll pull back while the archers keep fireing at them and chasing them down the battlefield.

The Alae Legionnaire unit is from MA Ermor. And while I don't mind losing units from a money point of view, I'd like to avoid it from a 'stopping to wait for re-enforcements' point of view. And think it'd be hard to recruit a load of them in the first few turns due to their 20res cost. Even max produciton scales will only allow you to recruit about 6 or so on turns 1+2. So hard to hit any sort of critical mass until close to turn 7. Even longer if they're taking heavy loses.

Thanks for the input Executor. Yeah, the 8gp 8r Leve's are certainly what I've had most success with during testing. They are quite effective once they hit a critical mass of 60+. But the only problem is that if I send 'just' 40 of them in, they'll take loses of 25%+, and then the next fight becomes a 50/50 or less.

Have used the 'place front and Guard Commander' tactic many times before. It helps a bit here, but not as much since the main problem is melee attrition, and not archer fire. Phasing-in the cavalry units helps as well, but I find them to be a bit fragile (again from an attrition PoV) since 12 protection 15 defence isn't an ideal mix. Would be better if the difference between the stats was more polarized.

Another annoying aspect is that the various tribe provinces result in the least attrition, but don't give you the Indy commanders needed for troop supply. Lots of little annoyances :mad: Starting to think I can't avoid using some mage/cleric support :(

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Correct. Thats why I didn't respond to your original question.

Use leves. Personally, I think you can afford a turn to make the standard bearing cmder.

Attack archers.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Well I don't know what else to suggest, take a phenix pretender and burn them all, PoD???
Or maybe take a minor bless, fill in the nature and water you need, say N4W4 and recruit a couple of sacred cavalry?

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Ha ha ha, tried all of the above twice over during testing :D
Lords of the Gates was an interesting one, as a handful of shades + 20 Principe's were semi-reliable with regards their attrition (mainly due to fear spamming mage). Only problem is that they need a top-end mage to lead them, so no early research. Plus LotG's is far from a good SC chassis. Starting to realise why EA Ermor firmly belongs in the 'Cripple Fight' game.

Many thanks for your feedback Executor. Helps to know I'm not missing anything obvious with regards the national units.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

No need to push research from the start with Ermor, their mages aren't capital only, so you're not missing anything.
They also have strong death(skull mentors) and can forge lanters later, however no starting death income so manual site searching is what I'd do from the start.
Lord of the Gates IS very interesting with all those free shades spawn.

Here's something that worked like a charm when I played EA C'tis, even weaker troops and couldn't use chariots due to bad scales(sloth 3 turmoil 3). I recruted holy 3 priests for the first 10 or so turns and just started smiting everything! A group of 3-4 smithers is ridiculously strong.
In this strategy you go against knights and other strong but few in numbers enemies.
It was an all era game, and I expanded the fastest of the 20 or so nations.

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

Yep, I think you are bang on with the early smiting brigade being a very valid option. One idea I'm thinking then is make nothing but H3 priests for first 5-6 turns, and take an awake dom 9-10 pathless Wyrm. That should guarantee at least 2 provinces per turn for first few turns, then 3-4 provinces per turn thereafter. Also, if you lose the Wyrm you have plenty of H3 preists on hand to bring him back. Only downside is that this does nothing for EA Ermor's lack of high level Earth + Astral.

You are also right that EA Ermor doesn't need early research as it can tank it in mid game. I just had this dream of getting Tarts in play by turn 20 :rolleyes:

Should probably take this conversation private as well due to... me + EA Ermor + in 'Cripple Fight'. But useful to keep it all here for any other interested parties who will no doubt have the same problems in the future :D

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

That's usually the problem when taking an awake pretender I guess, but it all depends on your play style and game settings,
high site frequency should cover the magic part, no score graphs should enable you to make a strong start and blitz someone before anyone realises it and thus cover more magic options. Sometimes it's better just to make a strong rush plan and figure things out along the way with empowerment, trading or indie mages with a little luck. :)

Re: EA Ermor Guide
 

I agree with most of the suggestions here.
The smiting works well for early game. I used it successfully with several nations that have H3 priests. I didn't try it with EA Ermor in MP, but in SP test games it worked great.

Another thing that worked well is a sleeping rainbow pretender that also gives four minor blesses: F4E4N4B4.
The E4 helps your sacred mages. Plus you can stick a shroud on the odd old age diseased mage.
The bless helps your sacred equites.

Perhaps an E10 bless on an imprisoned pretender would work as well. It will allow your A. bishops to smite forever and your sacred mages to last much longer. The protection bonus could be triggered by throwing an armor on those sacred mages that lack it and/or giving them bracers of protection.

All considered I think a rainbow pretender that complement's the national path is probably the most efficient choice.