Ermor balance?

[Heironeous]

After playing the demo with some friends for a while, I decided the time was right to pick up the full Version. My first MP experience with the full Version was a hotseat game with a friend. He chose Ashen Empire Ermor (dominion: 10, turmoil-sloth-death-luck-magic: 3) which I knew was a pretty strong theme. However, I soon realized that it was even stronger than I expected...

He got multiple leaders per turn, despite the fact he had only 1 castle. He got tons of free troops that were immune to routing. He pillaged ruthlessly, and used his money to purchase every mercenary group. To add insult to injury, Etimmu the Wraithlord decided to show up on turn 3 - he's probably the best special character I've seen.

Anyway, his initial expansion was impressive. By turn 8 he was taking 4 provinces a turn. If he had better managed his assets, he would've taken even more. I guess that was the most frustrating thing - he didn't really play that well and still managed to steamroller the independents (strength 6) and Man.

Is Ashen Empire Ermor too strong at the start? The independents and AI players couldn't stop him, thus he had a huge edge in troops and territory by turn 10. More provinces -> more troops -> more provinces... that synergy creates a lot of momentum. Add in the fact that the provinces he controls are progressively being ruined, and you have one very nasty opponent.

[Boron]

that is only because the ai can't cope with ermor .

since 2.12 ermor may not use the vq anymore so it has lost even more of its danger .

in a 8-10 player mp game ermor is nasty but it will normally be far behind in research or only small .
his freespawns can get killed quite quick even with banishment .

have you ever seen wither bones , dust to dust , holy pyre and the other undead killer spells in action in battle ?

he will attack with a legion of e.g. 1000 freespawns your 50-100 troops but when you can cast one of the above mentioned spells + have some priests your odds to win the battle are good .

if you are not his direct neighbor at start ermor is normally not the biggest problem .
ermor is still a good nation , perhaps even top 5 but not too strong .

you will soon notice this yourself too
have you scoregraphs on ?
leading in troop sizes for ae ermor is normal but normally he should be behind in research and only about nb 3 in gem income but normally not number 1 .

in your game your friend was just lucky because the ai can't cope with ermor .
i think though that perhaps your friend has summoned lots of priests for more reanimations and is far behind in research and not top in gem income .

ermor is nasty but has its issues . research and almost limited to death are the 2 biggest .

[Heironeous]

I can definitely see how things might balance out later in the game, but it's the early going I'm more concerned about. If I had started next to him he could've overrun me fairly easily (like he did to Man). Masses of priests aren't really an option in the beginning when you have only 1 castle. He also had the luxury of being able to invade many provinces at once, which puts a lot of pressure on the defender.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Heironeous:
I can definitely see how things might balance out later in the game, but it's the early going I'm more concerned about. If I had started next to him he could've overrun me fairly easily (like he did to Man). Masses of priests aren't really an option in the beginning when you have only 1 castle. He also had the luxury of being able to invade many provinces at once, which puts a lot of pressure on the defender.

in a 2 player game ermor is nasty .

but in a mp game with 8-10 humans WITHOUT any ais he can't do that . he may kill 1-2 others through a early rush still but that comes with the cost of almost zero research .
and the others will forge an alliance against him because they see him as a threat.

furthermore if ermor e.g. starts with marignon as neighbors he has nothing to laugh.

ermor is evil but normally not that a concern lategame .

at which map do you play with your friend ?
in a 2 humans and some ai only game ermor has advantages but not in any other situation.
if you play a large enough map his advantages aren't that good anymore too.

ermor is not the best searcher + clamhorder .
+ it almost can't bloodhunt .

so even with ais and only you and your friend playing on a bigger map he has still problems lategame if you know what to do .

[Agrajag]

Originally posted by Boron:
that is only because the ai can't cope with ermor .

since 2.12 ermor may not use the vq anymore so it has lost even more of its danger .

in a 8-10 player mp game ermor is nasty but it will normally be far behind in research or only small .
his freespawns can get killed quite quick even with banishment .

have you ever seen wither bones , dust to dust , holy pyre and the other undead killer spells in action in battle ?

he will attack with a legion of e.g. 1000 freespawns your 50-100 troops but when you can cast one of the above mentioned spells + have some priests your odds to win the battle are good .

if you are not his direct neighbor at start ermor is normally not the biggest problem .
ermor is still a good nation , perhaps even top 5 but not too strong .

you will soon notice this yourself too
have you scoregraphs on ?
leading in troop sizes for ae ermor is normal but normally he should be behind in research and only about nb 3 in gem income but normally not number 1 .

in your game your friend was just lucky because the ai can't cope with ermor .
i think though that perhaps your friend has summoned lots of priests for more reanimations and is far behind in research and not top in gem income .

ermor is nasty but has its issues . research and almost limited to death are the 2 biggest .

Why should Ermor be behind in research?
It starts with the possibility to summon a dusk elder every second turn for an average of 4 new RPs per turn, not too bad (yet not very good), with a bit of research and site-searching they can easily crank that up to even more through cheap summons with small research values strengthened by Magic+3.
Anyway, while I agree AE Ermor is pretty strong, the Anti-Undead spells are just too much for them.
I remember a game I had with the VS the AI, I had to conquer the Last enemy province on the entire map (which happened to be the AI's captiol).
I had ~500 units, he had ~40 IIRC.
One "Grind Bones" and I lost...
I never completed that game (And ended up deleting it after the post patch savegame cleanup I made).
One thing though, if R`lyeh and AE Ermor are forming enemy camps in a MP game, be sure to take Ermor's side ^^

[Sindai]

Originally posted by Heironeous:
Masses of priests aren't really an option in the beginning when you have only 1 castle.

Aha! Who said you need castles to recruit priests? National priests, yes, but the basic indie priests are available in almost every province, and since they're so resource-cheap you don't need a castle.

EDIT: Which is not to say Ermor can't be tough to beat. In your game setup (two humans with several AIs) I can see how AE or SG Ermor would be very, very nasty. Ermor will simply have a much easier time overrunning the AIs, who aren't smart enough to ally against him or adopt anti-undead tactics.

If he absolutely has to play AE and you don't want to join larger MP games, try a two-player game on that small map with you as, say, Marignon.

[ August 04, 2004, 19:23: Message edited by: Sindai ]

[The Panther]

Maybe each troop should have a fixed value based on how strong they are perceived to be. That would be far better than the one-size-fits-all method currenty in use. As you say, Norfleet, the army size graph is not useful and can be very misleading.

[Norfleet]

That's as inherently useless as an assessment based on pure numbers. The value of a troop can vary greatly by both technological level of game, and circumstance. The wrong kind of unit at the wrong time can be not only worthless, but even counterproductive. Does this mean that for every militia the player hires or acquires, his army strength goes down, as militias tend to do nothing but chew up upkeep while being difficult to get rid of?