Well you don't bring your ghostking to fights normally .
He is "just" a sitesearcher , forger , caster + wisher
.
So almost no risk of magic duel .
If ermor is target #1 or not depends a lot on the situation + the players you play with .
Some players think that ermor should be taken out quick while others think this is unrewarding and wait .
If you have lucky placement in a corner of the map then your chances are excellent but even otherwise you are no easy prey for most nations .
I play them normally quite defensive + research orientated . Your troops are imo cool because you get them in such huge numbers from midgame on that they really matter . Sure the enemy has lots of means to kill them , flames from the sky , massed priests , wither bones , holy pyre , wrathful skies etc. etc. etc. .
But they are excellent against SCs + they are good for raiding + pillaging .
So in midgame you can easily do some 200-500 undead pillage armies which do scorched earth to the enemy .
By the enemy main armies they get easily mowed down but smaller armies they easily kill . You just conquer a province , pillage 1 turn and advance to the next .
If you start with e.g. 10 200 undead raiding armies the enemy will kill 1 or 2 every turn but until he stopped all of your raiding armies he needs at least some turns + you have destroyed a few provinces + kept him busy
.
The other advantage is that you force by doing this your enemy to do lots of anti undead armies which you can then easily defeat with not undead SCs which are normally not often used but in these special circumstances kinda good like firbolgs , harbingers , arch angels etc. in midgame and in lategame you can do everything anyways cause you clamhoarded .
Your normal troops still matter in lategame because you will get 500-1000 maybe even more / turn . You get them for free while 1000 undead still require some effort for the enemy to kill them .
In lategame you have then the advantage of still being able to take the lighter defended enemy provinces with your freespawns only + every province you get gets pillaged and you caste + temple it immediately .
This way your enemy has even in lategame 2 huge mali :
- He has few income cause it is hard to defend more then 5 provinces constantly against ermor and only a 2 turn Lasting loss leaves a totally pillaged province .
This way he has to use some of his gems to produce money or big parts of his national mages will desert .
- By templing + castling every province your enemy gets probably dominionproblems + needs to preach . With already reduced income this gets even more severe .
Your screens of AE freespawns have the huge advantage that they are all LL . So the standard SC with lifeleech has extremely bad chances to win against them . So the enemy has to build special anti ermor SCs but your knights of the unholy sepulrche have when massed even chances of defeating such SCs .
Most of the stuff i said is possible by your freespawns only
.
Tartarians , Wraith lords , Demi liches etc. are some of the best commanders in the game as well and most of them are imo also quite cheap .
Once you survive to midgame you are normally strong enough to give even 2 or 3 invaders at least a very long + tough fight .