Strategy advice wanted

[Loren]

I decided the best way to learn the various races was to play each race on the same map and see how it goes. Unfortunately, I'm running into big trouble:

Ermor, early era. I keep getting utterly smashed. It's the usual story--things seem to be going ok (this time I just polished off the last lesser land power and dominion-killed Oceania on the same turn, only one enemy left) and then suddenly it's like my troops don't know how to fight anymore. He's got a bunch of mages that are way more powerful than anything I can recruit or afford to empower.

What in the world am I doing so wrong?

[Shovah32]

You probably need to get more mages and research more, late game mages, summons and SCs dominate the battlefield so try some of the following:
Research construction and forge boosters for your mages to cast big spells

Research conjuration/enchantment to get summoning spells, combined with construction this can give you access to thugs/SC's(summon black servants, spectres, banelords and maybe even wraithlords/tartarians) and equip them either to solo enemy armies or support your armies

Research evocation for battle magic(iirc you have fire which is obvious for artillery, you can also get things like shadow bolt, banefire, maybe even nether darts) which can also go well with conjuration(phoenix power ect to boost skill level in battle) or construction (forged boosters).

Research enchantment for skele spam, if you have d2+ mages(iirc you do) they can cast raise skeletons. While a single mage casting this isnt impressive, a bunch of them can have a real effect on the battlefield.

Research alteration/enchantment for troop buffs, casting spells like luck and body ethereal on tough troops(sacred cavalry, principe ect) can make them alot tougher, as an example with both of those enchantments on a group of men only 1 in 8 hits will effect them(ethereal stops 3/4, luck stops half of the 1/4)

Take an awake/sleeping SC pretender(any tough pretender who can cast some buffs on himself/solo indies without buffs)

Try a bless strat, f9w9 makes your sacreds both survivable(shield, 21 def, 13 health, recuperation), fast(+50% movement) and hard hitting(14atk, light lance, hoof, 50% chance of extra attack, all attacks flaming)

You could use any combination of these or plans all of your own, telling us your strategy would help us in helping you.

[Valandil]

You actually havve fairly easy time with reaseach, with easy skull mentors. I personally would research ench 3, cnst 4, evo 3 first.

I personally wouldn't bother with a bless strat, but would rather take lots of positive scales. Otherwise, play as many human nations (eg. pythium), nationals to expand, research to a decent level, and then win with magic.

[quantum_mechani]

Loren said:
... way more powerful than anything I can recruit or afford to empower.

First off, I get the feeling you are empowering way too much. Almost the only reason you will want to empower is to get at least one mage capable of doing high level forging/rituals in a given path. For instance, say you have ton of air gems, but only air 3 mages. In this case, spending the gems to empower a level in order to get booster items and air queens might be a viable choice.

Now, as for what your mages should be doing in battle, I advise phoenix power + fireballs, or raise skeletons. For troops, you can usually get by recruiting almost only lizard legionaries, and triari/alae when you need the gold for mages/mercs/buildings.

[Valandil]

Empowerment has a place in blood magic too, since it is easy to pick up a massive quantity of slaves (expecially via wish).

What type of pretender are you using?

[Loren]

quantum_mechani said:

First off, I get the feeling you are empowering way too much. Almost the only reason you will want to empower is to get at least one mage capable of doing high level forging/rituals in a given path. For instance, say you have ton of air gems, but only air 3 mages. In this case, spending the gems to empower a level in order to get booster items and air queens might be a viable choice.

Now, as for what your mages should be doing in battle, I advise phoenix power + fireballs, or raise skeletons. For troops, you can usually get by recruiting almost only lizard legionaries, and triari/alae when you need the gold for mages/mercs/buildings.

The only empowering I have done is to help with site searching. I'm saying that the levels I have observed with the enemy mages are higher than I see any way to obtain.

[quantum_mechani]

Loren said:

The only empowering I have done is to help with site searching. I'm saying that the levels I have observed with the enemy mages are higher than I see any way to obtain.

Empowering for site searching can be valid too, but you never have to go farther than level 2 (to use remote site search spells).

[HoneyBadger]

My advice is a little different-not much, but a little. First of all, Ermor has great troops for using strategy on the battlefield, so if you're willing to take the time and effort to script out, and think about, every troop on the battlefield, it can really pay off with Ermor. Second, Ermor has great sacred calvalry-they're fast, strong, and heal afflictions, which means you can have them around for a long, long time. I personally like to put a Nature bless and an Earth bless on them, atleast 4, but more is fine too, after all when you don't have to worry so much about getting afflicted, the longer you can have your troops on the field, the better. They're mainly good for taking out archers and flanking anyway, and I feel it's better to concentrate on blesses-like earth and nature-which will help your units survive longer, rather than fire and water, which will give you a combat machine that may help you a lot in the early and middle portions of the game, but will leave you with lots of levels in two of the weakest branches of magic. Don't use Ermor calvalry to try and slaughter the enemy, kill them with your footsoldiers and use the calvalry to grind the enemy soldiers, mages, and archers down, instead. You're going to have a lot more foot for the same price, and Ermor's soldiers are cheap and respectable. Lizard auxiliaries are fine, but the other troop types also have their place. Remember that Ermor is strong in priestly power, not so much in magic. You're going to want to spread your people around so you've got lots of researching "camps" and in the long term have lots of the younger mages rather than Auger Elders, because those Elders might be gone in a year from disease.

[Shovah32]

And, as already stated, remember that you only need lvl2(1 in the case of death and maybe astral) to preform a lvl9 search in that path(via remote searching) and if you can get an s3 mage you can do a lvl9 search from every path by casting acashic record.

[PDF]

For a start I suggest just you forgot to empower anyone, it's a very inefficient way of wasting tons of gems unless you really know what you're doing (eg boosting that mage to Air4 and you have Cons4 and still a lot of Air gems to make Bags/helms booster).

I'm unclear about what you did encounter : in SP I've never seen the IA empower mages, rarely boost them and overall it doesn't have enough of it by far...If you're playing MP well that's life with a better opponent
With Ermor Early you should get as much Augur Elders as you can, using them as artillery with Fire spells (they have access to the Fire Skull item), and research to Ench4 and Conj3 to summon Banes, Wights and Behemoths for example, these units are strong. Give some a Skull Staff to make them up to D4.
Also make some Skull mentors to boost research, give them to Flamen or such that you can recruit anywhere.
Then go Ench5 for Pale Riders, Ench6 to summon the dreaded Banefire Archers, and Conj5 for Bane Lords, those are even stronger and with some equipment can kill many foes.

A Water9 bless on Equites is not really efficient but fun and usable in SP, as they have a good def. Fire4+ is required in this case IMHO as they have a paltry attack (that's weird as they're supposed to be super-elite ?)