What to do about Ermor ....

[LintMan]

Since he's AI he's not building any fortresses, for which I'm pathetically grateful. The main Ermor citadel has proven very hard to take - any tips on what sort of army I should use would be gratefully appreciated. He has an undead pretender (not a GK, a Prince of something) with huge MR (25 the one time I saw it), so Banishment is prob not going to work (maybe that's why my priests didn't banish the troops - were they trying to banish him instead and failing?). I think the damn thing is ethereal as well.

I've just got Conj 5 and am summoning Firbolgs and Bane Lords this turn, both of which come equipped with magic weapons.

I still think I might try and leave Ermor until Last though, and hope he doesn't expand away from me. I'm getting very worried about the size of the Tien Chi army.

Since Ermor kills off his provinces, I recommend taking him out before he spreads further, particularly since it sounds like he's on the ropes anyway:

It sounds as if your armies took down most/all of his army except for a core set of commanders and his prentender, but you just can't crack his citadel and fear that eventually his auto-summons would overwhelm your seiging force.

My suggestions:
1) Use part of your army to seige his castle. Expect occasional attempts to break the seige, but without his castle defenses to help him out you should be able to handle this more easily - also considering he will likely leave some commanders/units in reserve when he attacks.

You can occasionally attack with a scout set to retreat to get a peek at how he's building his forces up. Have all your priests preaching here as you seige. Keep buying priests to preach (and banish in combat).

Set up a nearby lab and start summoning up some undead of your own as fodder. The undead cavalry (Pale Riders?) is a fantastic summon, but behemoths, banes, and even dispossed spirits are all useful. Use a few mound kings as leaders and to shuttle the undead fodder to the seiged castle.

Simultaneously, use the other part of your army to take *all* his surrounding provinces. They probably are weakly defended for the most part (since if he had another big army, he'd be attacking you with it) so you shouldn't need too big a force for this. When you take his provinces, put up temples wherever you can afford - especially in the provinces around his castle.

Your goal here is to reduce Ermor to a single province so no outside relief/income is available, while also reducing his dominion and gem income (and increasing yours!) Lowering his castle province's dominion will also weaken his pretender for your eventual assault.

2) While doing that, build yourself up an supercombatant or two that can probably crack Ermor's citadel force alone if necessary. Easiest would be a pair of good 'ol Banelords with Starshine Skullcaps (Horror Helm is worthless against most (all?) undead), Jade Armor, Flying Boots, anti-magic amulets, and luck amulets. I usually equip them with wraith swords, but they don't do so much against undead. You could try herald lances though, which are good against undead.
Two of these banelords can probably take on his citadel force by themselves, but since you have a seiging force right there, just send everybody in (ie: banelords, priests, jotuns, undead fodder). Have the banelords on hold-hold-hold-attack rear so that his forces and arrow defenses will engage your fodder forces before your banelords jump in.

Hope this helps!