How to play Ermor

[Aracon]

Hi there! I'm new at the game (just received from post), and i'd like to begin playing with Ermor. Can u give me any advice? I've been searching forums and i've not find (by search menu) anything like a "guide" or any link to one...i've seen guides to other races, but not this... well, more than a "how to play Ermor", i search for advices, especially on how to obtain gems and how can i make gems production boost, because i've found i couldn't summon troops every turn with SG theme.

Thanks for help

PD: What means 'SC'? Thx again ^^

[ July 22, 2004, 23:14: Message edited by: Aracon ]

[Teleolurian]

SC means supercombatant.

Ermor is dramatically easy to play versus the AI once you get the concept. Basically, drop all of your scales and use the points on your pretender; alternatively, increase Magic to +3 to hasten your research. Most of your undead summons are in Enchantment, but some special summons requiring dual paths (like King of Banefires) will be in Conjuration. Skull Mentors and Nether Darts are useful.

As people die in your provinces, you will end up with hordes of cheap screen units. A cheap castle type will allow you to build several and use them to recruit cheap commanders to lead this growing horde, but you'll need something with more guts to destroy a well-trained army. Against the AI you can hold off enemy attacks and rush towards Tartarian Gate as an exercise in entertainment. This is likely not a viable MP strategy, though some may argue.

Other flavors of Ermor (Broken Empire, Soul Gate) require different modes of play, since BE is more like a near-undead Pythium and Soul Gate deals in spirits. As I have little experience with SG and none with BE, I'll leave discussion of those to wiser heads.

[Teleolurian]

Forgot the most important thing: you want a dominion of 10. Your negative dominion is a powerful weapon because it hurts everyone else much, much more than you.

[Yossar]

10 dominion is usually overkill. 10 costs a whole lot more than 9, and 9 dominion + 5 temples gets you the maximum 10 dominion. Save the points and stick with 8 or 9 dominion if you want it that high.

[Arryn]

Actually, 6 dominion should be enough to begin with, especially considering how easy it is to raise by building temples. By mid-game, if you've been building temples on a regular basis, you can easily be at 10 (see my AAR for an example of this).

Higher dominion will spread somewhat faster, but the initial cost in DPs is so high that you're likely much better off spending it on boosting magic picks.

[Vynd]

I don't know that you will ever have enough Death gems as Ermor. That's just a weakness you'll have to work around. There is a second level Conjuration spell called Dark Knowledge that can be used to find all of the Death magic sites ina province. You should probably use that on every province you own.

A few other general tips about Ermor:

Since your population will die soon anyway, go ahead and pillage it. Also, set taxes really high. You might as well get as much gold from them as possible.

Once all of your people are dead money will be hard to find, so save it for important things like forts, temples, labs, and powerful independent commanders. Generally speaking, don't buy independent troops (that is, non-commanders). You can't afford them and won't be able to feed them.

The best of your free units will only appear where you have temples and/or forts.

As Teleolurian said, be sure to set most of your dominion scales all of the way negative. The positive scales like Order won't help much once everyone is dead. I do recommend setting your magic scale to +3 however, because your mages are expensive and not very good at research.

Use all of the dominion points you received for taking negative scales to build a majorly powerful Pretender and to get a very high starting dominion.

Remember that your troops can go underwater early in the game when hardly anyone else can.