How do I fight ermor?

[jaif]

Heh, well I was just schooled by Ermor. He hit me with 3 armies, all of which were the same size as my biggest. Worse yet, he marched underwater and then split on the coast, taking multiple provinces very quickly. I've since bLasted them, and the follow-on armies away, and beat up another necromatic pythian army too (I had pythia on the ropes when ermor attack), but I've lost some pythian provinces, and one of my provinces now has population zero.

I have plenty of priests, but now I have a huge upkeep for my size, and I have no idea how I'm going to expand when at least 50% of the world is depopulated.

So, assassin idea is off. I do have a nature province, so I'll save up 400 gold and put a temple+lab there to get a druid or two. The problem is that this is slow, and ermor is quick, quick, quick.

-Jeff

[Taqwus]

If you're not preaching along your border, you probably should. That might help fight the intruding dominion and reduce the risk of massive, essentially unreversible population loss. Another use for excess priests would be "banish/banish/banish/run away!" attacks just to attrit him a bit.
If it's a multiplayer game, a temporary alliance with Pythium might make sense. Presumably neither of you wants your populations completely gone.

[GavinWheeler]

Originally posted by jaif:
Oh, bonus question: if a province is at population zero, is there anyway for it to increase?

-Jeff

From zero, as far as I am aware, only random lucky events (people migrating in) can increase the population.

If you have a non-zero population, a growth scale would help, and I'm not sure whether spells such as "Gift of Nature's bounty" have a positive effect on population or not. But from a flat out depopulated province, only luck will help.

[jaif]

The dominion was solid in my borders. At the edges, it was give and take, and in the Pythian provinces it was coming along (some to my side, some still pythian). Dominion wasn't really a problem. The problem was that when he attacked, he hit an outlying province on an island chain, then hit other provinces up the coast. By the time I tossed him off the coast and fought my way back down the islands, the Last province was completely depopulated.

I'm wonder if I had used the raven-something spell (ravens eat corpses and bring back gems) much earlier if that would have slowed his growth.

-Jeff

[Taqwus]

Growth is, what, 0.3% per turn per point of Growth? Even if there's a 1000 people left rather than 0, well, that's not much compared to an Ashen Empire dominion that kills up to 50% population per turn depending on strength. It's wrecked.

You'd be better off with Luck +3 and praying that the random number generator blesses you with an immigration event, then waiting the eternity it'd take to get something back up. Basically the pop drop is a one-way trip unless that happens, or you're using a mod to dramatically boost Growth scale power.

Ravens might have helped; they eat corpses, which might be helpful if he used Carrion Reanimation (reanimates up to 100 corpses per cast) or stops to reanimate, or used his own Raven Feast to eke out a few more death gems (not that this normally yields much IIRC).

[Alexander Seil]

An Arcocephalian Priestess and a medium-sized phalanx with adequate flank support will butcher an Ermorian skeletal legion three times its size...

[PvK]

So can just about any heavy infantry group with an independent priest or two attached.

PvK