Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Isn't Ashen Empire or Soul Gate too strong?

They spawn for no fee in each province, each turn. Ermor player have all the money to build forts, temples, alchemy and so on.

Ermor troops don't cost any manteinance, so they're good for long games ...
Ermor troops don't need to eat, so they can with great armies were only few defenders can stand (PD is almost always weak)
Ermor troops don't suffer from fatigue.

Ermor don't need of Scales except Magic.
Turmoil 3 - don't need of gold cause provinces should be empty of people.
Sloth 3 - don't need production, and nor gold too.
Cold 3 - don't need supply or gold. Cold3 can enhance some undead cold halo.
Death 3 - Obvious.
Misfortune 3 - Most of bad events are population killing ... what Ermor needs.

Magic ... as it prefers.

So almost 1100 points to spend in: Castle, Pretender, Dominion and Magic ... mmm probably so on 800 points or more to spend in MAGIC for pretender!!!

To not to count when you conquer Ermor provinces they often are empty or little crowded, so meager income and resources from them.

Probably I'm forgotting something.

Does they need to be reviewed?

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Ermor's themes' great downside: A 50g indepedent commander can kill 10 or more of their troops in a battle.

All of Ermor's themes' troops are Undead. That is their weakness. There are any number of ways to exploit that weakness.

Most of their troops are also highly vulnerable to missile fire.

I don't really fear Ermor, unless they have a huge territorial advantage over me.

Bayushi Tasogare

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Soul Gate troops are "Ethereal". So there's little chance to be struck by common weapons.

Ashen Empire ... true are very weak but they're far more numerous than yours, usually.

Many spells and items have improved damage with undeads, or are only vs undeads ... but I believe they don't match the benefits of this nation.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Undead Ermor looks very powerful - and is in SP. AI doesn't handle undead threat well and other AI nations get destroyed rather quickly.
Things changes when you encounter some fanatic Priests in MP- say those of Pythium http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif !
Last game I've played my band of communicating-priest lay waste to a 500+ undead army. After the battle 3 of them were at top of HoF with 100-200 kills each http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif !
So undead are not that unbalanced.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

Don't forget the Pretender with 800-900 magic points.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

There are several things that you must remember when dealing with the two undead themes of Ermor. The first is that they will have more troops than you. To overcome this, you must have some way of dealing with large quantities of undead with low magic resistance. This can be done by having an force of a dozen or so of the 50 gold, holy 2, independent priests. Make sure that you have a screen of high morale or unbreakable heavy troops in front of your priests to protect them.

The second thing is that you need some way to prevent your troops from starving. Nature magic is the solution here, with cauldrons of broth, endless wineskins, and summer swords. Wineskins can be built by any nature 1 mage, and should be put on scouts who will hide and just provide food for your troops.


The third thing is that you must be able to deal with the Ermorian pretender. This will likely be a Vampire Queen, as it is one of the most effective combat pretenders out there. banishment will not help you here, since a pretender will have lots of magic resistance. The way to win here is with magic. Don't just throw normal troops at it or they will all be lost on the various damage shields they have. Hopefully the pretender is not wearing an elemental armor, or your options become rather limited. If they are not immune to all elemental magic, then the best way to kill them is with armor negating spells like thunder strike, orb lightning, and incinerate. Lots of astral 2 mages set to cast paralysis can help if the SC (supercombatant) is has a magic resistance of 25 or lower, but above that your chances of success are extremely low. If the unit is immune to all elemental damage, then your best bet is to try and use death magic against it. Dust to dust, and wither bones are two spells that cause armor negating damage to undead and can be quite effective.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Your troops have a 75% chance that their weapons will not affect the ethereal troops. Of course, their weapons only have a 54% chance of effecting your troops if you have a magic resistance of 10 on average. Use the enchantment spell antimagic, and this becomes much lower. You also only need to hit their dispossed spirits once to kill them. Magic is extremely effective against soul gate's troops, since they all have no protection, and magical effects ignore etherealness. Blade wind, for example, is brutally effective.

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

The biggest problem with Ermor is that nobody wants to attack them because:

1) You have to make a special anti-undead force that probably won't integrate all that well into an army to face more conventional opponents.

2) You need some way of supplying your troops since Ermors lands are pretty barren. This generally requires at least a Nature mage or two.

3) Your rewards for defeating Ermor are less than for defeating other nations. Provinces with no population produce no money. The 10 death gem castle is nice, though.

Ermor isn't overpowered. They have tons of units but they're all pretty weak. The problem is that nobody wants to attack them so they sometimes get a lot of time to build up. If you don't attack them early you could be in trouble.

[ April 10, 2004, 02:08: Message edited by: Yossar ]

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a theory. In practice, Ermor is by far the nation that gets attacked the earlier. So there must be something wrong in your reasoning http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Ermor themes, too strong?
 

The only thing I hate about 'em, personally (and I am not experienced enough to really comment on balance with much authority) is that they get massive free design points by taking negative scales that don't affect them and then make unusually strong pretenders with it.

I mean, the other things are annoying, too, about not getting much from their territories but the pop being dead is kind of innate flavor of the nation. Of course, I think it would have been nice if ignoring certain aspects of the game (morale, supply, population, upkeep, etc.) had been spread out among more nations (like a nation where all their troops are constructs and don't need supply, an R'lyeh theme where every baseline troop had the lobo advantage, etc.), I would hate to take away too much from one of the more original nations, if that makes any sense.

- Kel