Paper, Rock, Marignon!

[Kel]

Originally posted by Cheezeninja:

Even when Kel says most games he play devolve into everyone vs Ermor... that doesnt mean Ermor wins often, or at all.

Just to make it completely clear, I am in no way saying that they normally do or do not win World vs Ermor battles.

Quite frankly i dont want to see a game where every faction seems like a recreation of the others with a different paintjob, and i love the fact that there are factions that work in radically different ways.

Well, see, that's kind of borrowing from my point, actually. You don't want nations to all be the same (and neither do I, then again, theother nations aren't all the same and they don't have this effect)...but it is turning all of my games into being the same (more or less). That's just as bad !

- Kel

[HotNifeThruButr]

Sure, I've got no problems with nations being dramatically different, but I think they should be based around rational concepts. Nothing like the killer dominions.

"I've got an idea! We have this theme that uses hordes of free troops! Because they're free, you don't need scales to support them, so they'll have a beefy SC Pretender ALL THE TIME! Oh, and their dominion KILLS EVERYONE, so armies can't invade without nature magic or fay boars! And when they do, the land is TOTALLY USELESS because EVERYONE'S DEAD!"

[Yossar]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I like having Ermor around when I'm not Ermor. They're such a huge magnet for public ire, due to Kel's reported "everyone vs. Ermor" effect, that I can justify nearly anything in the name of "let's kill Ermor", all while pursuing my own agenda which has absolutely nothing to do with actually doing anything about Ermor.

Ya, a lot of the time you can get away with saying "Don't attack me, I'm trying to get rid of Ermor" regardless of whether you actually are or not. Doesn't really work with any other nation.

I don't think Ermor is especially powerful, but with Miasma and Carrion Woods, they are among the most annoying nations to fight against.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
Sure, I've got no problems with nations being dramatically different, but I think they should be based around rational concepts. Nothing like the killer dominions.

"I've got an idea! We have this theme that uses hordes of free troops! Because they're free, you don't need scales to support them, so they'll have a beefy SC Pretender ALL THE TIME! Oh, and their dominion KILLS EVERYONE, so armies can't invade without nature magic or fay boars! And when they do, the land is TOTALLY USELESS because EVERYONE'S DEAD!"

I somehow don't think that those were the guiding concepts of Ermor's killer dominions, which are thematic in nature: Ermor is a lifeless nation composed nearly entirely of the undead. It's thematic that all of the population dies and is replaced by undead units.

The drawback being that you lose the ability to effectively produce any OTHER units, because your population is 0 and cannot support such an endeavor, and your army is entirely one-dimensional. There are so many spells and effects designed specifically to eradicate the undead that it's not funny. Practically every offensively-oriented magic path has SOMETHING for specifically wasting undead.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Cheezeninja:
Maybe thats just Ermor's flavor... they can be used well by almost anyone, they scare people alot, and the AI can't handle them well. Offsetting this is the perception people have of all these things which causes people to gang up on them.

If the only drawback to Ermor's power was purely perceptual, and people would automatically lose if they failed to gang up on Ermor, then Ermor WOULD be overpowered.

This is not really the case: Well-played, any nation stands a decent chance of defeating Ermor alone. Some nations are better at doing this at different stages in the game than others. Ulm, for instance, stands a good chance at crushing AE Ermor in an early rush, provided that Ermor's pretender can be countered: However, later in the game, Ulm will falter against any flavor of dead Ermor because it is unable to easily sustain its dominion against the increasingly large hordes.

However, Ermor is very simple for even a novice player to use at a decent level of play: Most of Ermor is blunt and easy to get a handle on, and requires little of the fine nuances of other nations. Ultimately, however, Ermor proves one-dimensional. Once you get good at that dimension, you have little else available to you. Other nations have more depth, but a newbie is rarely able to perceive and plumb those depths.

As a result, the common response becomes "Gang Up On Ermor". This rather hamhanded approach, however, targets Ermor's strengths rather than its weaknesses. Thus, Ermor is quickly perceived to be overpowered because everyone pits what could very well be one of their weaknesses against Ermor's strength and attempts to overwhelm it by brute force. Unfortunately, you learn very little this way.

On the other hand, you can make this work for you, provided you do not allow Ermor to intimidate you: People will give you their gold, their gems, their provinces, and leave you alone and unmolested, so long as you profess to be fighting Ermor. Suckers.

[Cheezeninja]

Nature magic is FAR from the only way around the lack of supplies. Commanders never starve, all you really need is troops that dont eat. I've had great success in SP with Devils, but any of the lifeless troops or troops that dont need food work.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
...Ermor's killer dominions...
The drawback being that you lose the ability to effectively produce any OTHER units, because your population is 0 and cannot support such an endeavor, and your army is entirely one-dimensional. ...

It doesn't have to be entirely one-dimensional. The same units enemies can summon to survive in Ermorian dominion, can be summoned by Ermor, particularly if the Ermorian pretender is a rainbow mage who site-searches.

PvK