[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by johan osterman:

quote:

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Originally posted by apoger:
>In what way is Ermor worse under the new system?


Since gold is tighter, influence from Ermonian dominion will hurt more.

Even if ermors influence has been reduced (and I don't know if it has) by 1/2...

In Dom I;
Taxes 1000
Upkeep 500
Net=500 gold to spend per turn
Then Ermors influence brings taxes down 200.
Net=300 gold to spend per turn

In Dom II;
Taxes 600
Upkeep 500 (no change to that)
Net = 100 gold to spend per turn
Then Ermors influence brings taxes down 100 (a guess).
Net = 0 gold to spend per turn

This sort of thing has repercussions beyond Ermor. The Dom II economy is much different than Dom I.

Frankly, I'm surprised you had to ask about this.

Frankly I am suprised by your analysis, the glaring fault is of course that upkeep is dependent on income, so everything else equal the upkeep in the second case would be 300 not 500. Thus, if we assume the rest of the numbers make sense, you would have 200 gold remaining. Making the influence more or less proportional, and if we change the ermorian influence to -120gp it is proportional.

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He is also neglecting the fact that in Dom I you had to pay upkeep on your patrollers - you couldn't get that kind of extra income without patrollers.

Of course Ermorian influence will be less in absolute terms - you aren't taxing at 200% in Dom II. That is the biggest reason incomes are less. Some positive scales have been nerfed somewhat - but on the other hand, so have their negative counterparts. You won't lose as much from Ermor's Turmoil 3 in Dom II as you would have in Dom I.

Usually though your core provinces won't fall under Ermorian dominion anyway, unless you have very low dominion strength and/or are failing to preach. Mictlan might have a problem with an Ermorian dominion pusher, but I doubt if many others would - Ermor can't preach and can't afford many temples. (Desert Tombs C'tis can do both, but doesn't have the killer dominion. I don't know if Carrion Woods Pangaea can preach and still has cheap temples - if so, dominion pushing from them could be very dangerous.)

More serious is that provinces you take from Ermor are more or less permanently ruined, while other players who fight living opponents can gain valuable land (if they win). The high gem income of the Unholy Sepulchre (and other lands searched by Ermor's pretender, if they go for a rainbow mage) makes up for this somewhat - if you can use it.

Of course all this analysis assumes that Ermor is going Ashen Empire or Soul Gates. Otherwise they will probably take much less malign dominion since they will need gold and supplies for their own troops - and they don't have the "kill the living, reanimate the dead" special dominion effect.

Yes, it is likely to be somewhat of a disadvantage to start next to an Ashen Empire or Soul Gates Ermor (or a Carrion Woods Pangaea). But those themes will probably be unpopular in MP because they are (a) easy to counter (by human players), (b) start slow (at least Dom I Ermor did), and perhaps most importantly (c) draw too much hostility from a diplomatic perspective.

I'd like to be able to play all the different special themes of Ermor before making a definitive statement as to which would be best for MP; but at the moment I expect that Ashen Empire/Soul Gates would probably not be a good choice.