[Taqwus]

Earth is a potentially very valuable path for Ermor; most of the more common free-castle or free-income sites for magic provinces are Earth. A bonus 100-gold site will pay you 200 when taxed 200% even if all the population is dead.

Fire can also help for the alchemy income, but it gives you less free stuff like free fortresses.

A quasitraditional Dom2 build involved getting most paths at least at level 2, except for blood -- blood is almost completely useless for the Ashen Empire since you will rapidly lose population and it's difficult to get blood slaves. It's harder in Dom3 now that randoms tend to be restricted; for instance, you can't get a blood spectre, so you would end up having even fewer effective hunters than before.