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Yes, but taking Luck is a natural thing to do when taking Turmoil, and everyone takes magic-3....right?

Not everyone

Ermor with Magic-3 pays 12 gems to get a Spectator who does 7 research. Ermor with drain-3 gets 1 research out of the same guy, until experience increases. That's pretty horrible. But when you equip your Spectator with an Owl Quill and a Skull Mentor, you're paying 27 gems to get 13 research in drain-3 (16 with lanterns instead of quills). In magic-3 you get 19 (22 w/lantern) research out of that same guy. So your research, in the long run, is about 2/3 as good in drain-3 as in magic-3, and this discounts experience bonuses which make the gap smaller. Of course, you'd have to get to Construction 4 first, and this is a lot of time your pretender spends parked in the library when he ought to be out killing people.

I'm not seriously suggesting taking drain-3. Just pointing out that because of Ermor's tendency (or at least ability) to use Skull Mentors, you're not hurting so much in Drain (or at least from less magic scale) as other nations.

Wth a living nation you more or less have to take luck if you are taking turmoil. With Ermor you can still afford misfortune, if you need more points, or at the least, luck-2 instead of luck-3. The only bad event that really hurts for Ermor is having a lab or temple kerplode. Everything else kills half of your 0 population. IMO, the primary problem with misfortune is that you DON'T get gem or gold positive events.

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Soul Gate is far better, since your troops could flee, yes, but they're ethereal.
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Soul Gate Ermor lacks cavalry. There are no spectral cavalries that are the counterparts of AE's Longdead Horsemans.

Except Longdead Horsemen, of course. You don't get them free, but you can summon them for 0.5 gems (or less) per horse. And then there's the Behemoth...

Soul Gate Ermor, while ethereal, has ubiquitous 0 protection and is completely defenseless against magic-based attack

The Ashen Ermor troops don't hold up all that well against magic based attack either. The only advantage they have is that there are (slightly) more of them, so it takes more castings to kill them all.

In the past I held that Soul Gate was weaker than Ashen Ermor, because it has such worse autosummons. And while the autosummons are worse, largely because you don't get free, sometimes sacred, cavalry, they aren't THAT MUCH worse. Blade Wind/Holy Pyre/Banishment/etc kills longdeads about as efficiently as spirits. But SG troops can defend castles, and have better MR. The free commanders, which have priest powers, are much better. And the national summons, while more expensive, are ethereal and have better stats. All in all I think it is about a wash.