What to do about Ermor ....

[deccan]

Yeah, I had a lot of trouble with Ermor as well in my recent SP game as Abysian. I know Holy Pyre and level 4 priests kill Ermor fast, but there are just so many of them, and my troops have nothing to eat in their dominion, plus the other AI players can't handle him and so pile on me. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

[Boron]

Yeah, I had a lot of trouble with Ermor as well in my recent SP game as Abysian. I know Holy Pyre and level 4 priests kill Ermor fast, but there are just so many of them, and my troops have nothing to eat in their dominion, plus the other AI players can't handle him and so pile on me. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

abysia is one of the few nations who have a really easy time with ermor mid-lategame
3 things :
1. attack big troop concentrations of ermor with flames from the sky
2. massproduce vampires , build jadeknives and sacrifice blood on your borders to ermor . this way you will push dominion quite fast into him and your vampires can wipe out the ermorian hordes without danger .
3. devil horde + lots of fire mages scripted to good massdamage fire spells

oh and as you said you have holy pyre and your vampire lords can cast wither bones

so abysia and mictlan are probably the 2 nations who kill ermor easiest with little effort

[magnate]

Man, this is not going well. I decided to mass for an attack on Ermor, as per Lint's advice, and of course Tien Chi declared war on me and invaded two border provinces.

So I put plans for Ermor on hold (they didn't seem to be expanding, and all the pop in their provinces is dead already) and went after Tien Chi. How the heck do you deal with Living Statues? They're not undead, but they're unbreakable (morale 50) and they have 22 prot! A group of about six went through three provinces of 20 giants each! I have very few earth gems so no Elf Bane. Are there spells that target magic beings? (Is there some sort of index of spell effects anywhere, to save looking through every spell whenever I have a question like this?)

As I suspected, Tien Chi were spread pretty thin (apart from where they attacked me), so I've taken a half dozen of his provinces. In the meantime I found an isolated Ermor province, cut off from the rest of Ermor by a plucky Vanheim. So I decided to mop it up on my way further into Tien territory - by this time I had two fully equipped Bane Lords and two similarly decked out Firbolgs.

Unfortunately Vanheim decided to take that Ermor province the same turn, and I accidentally killed their god! I lost a Firbolg in the process too. On the same turn I had decided that I could encroach on Ermor with one of my Bane Lords, and he got surrounded and killed. It was so close though - 240 undead killed out of 253, meaning it was only the summoned skellies that turned the tide.

As if that all wasn't enough to be going on with, Pythium teleported an army into the middle of my empire, which was fortunately repelled by the PD. Since Pythium have no provinces and their home fortress is under siege by R'lyeh, I'd have thought they'd have had better things to do! To cap it all, it was the one turn I forgot to check the merc roster, and all three of my mages deserted (Dagan, Obscuro and the white wizard guy). That was one bummer of a turn - at least I got to conj 6 and can start calling Lamia queens.

Sorry, this is turning into a bit of an AAR (or rather During) - apols. Just a few summary questions:

1. How to deal with Living Statues? (and other high prot non-undead MBs I guess)

2. Why did my Bane Lord charge into the middle of the undead army and get surrounded, instead of flying to the back and offing leaders like he was ordered to? He only flew halfway down the battlefield.

3. Does the AI assume peace after X turns of no conflict? Caelum just declared war on me again - I didn't notice we'd ever not been at war, but it's true that a few turns had elapsed since we Last fought.

4. If I equip a Bane Lord with a Flambeau or a Fire Brand, and a Burning Pearl, will he be safe from the fire effects?

Stay tuned - this is definitely my most interesting game yet!

CC

[Vynd]

1. How to deal with Living Statues? (and other high prot non-undead MBs I guess)

2. Why did my Bane Lord charge into the middle of the undead army and get surrounded, instead of flying to the back and offing leaders like he was ordered to? He only flew halfway down the battlefield.

3. Does the AI assume peace after X turns of no conflict? Caelum just declared war on me again - I didn't notice we'd ever not been at war, but it's true that a few turns had elapsed since we Last fought.

4. If I equip a Bane Lord with a Flambeau or a Fire Brand, and a Burning Pearl, will he be safe from the fire effects?

Stay tuned - this is definitely my most interesting game yet!

CC

1. Magic beings require a mage to command them. So if you kill the enemy's mages then the Statues will be destroyed. There are also a number of spells that should work on them, but I can't remember most of their names. Opposition is one of them. No doubt someone else can come up with more. And of course you can always beat them down with, say, a Gate Cleaver.

2. Attack Rearmost is a frustrating command. As I udnerstand it, units set with that order have to make some sort of check (a morale check?) for every group of enemies that they pass on the way to the rear. If they fail the check then they attack that group.

3. I don't know if the AI ever assumes peace, as you put it, or not. But I do know that fighting a battle with the AI does not necessarily mean you are at war with them. For instance, there have been times when the AI and I both attack the same Independent province, thus ending up fighting each other. Afterwards the AI did not come after me as if we were at war. Later on in the game, it declared war on me. That may be what happened to you and Caelum.

4. Are you asking if the fire protection bonuses from different items add up? Some do, some don't. There's a thread on this somewhere. It is kind of broken that way. Also, Last I heard Burning Pearls were borken, in that they give 100% fire protection when they're only supposed to give 50%.

[Boron]

1. How to deal with Living Statues? (and other high prot non-undead MBs I guess)

living statues have fortunately only 15 hp . so use fire or better air spells against them .
most fire spells are ap so protection is halfed .
most air spells are an so no protection . so a lightning bolt e.g. has 14+ an damage and requirement of only A .
so when cast by a AA mage it should do at least 15 damage and if you cast before aim on your mages almost every lightning bolt hits .
you are standard jotunheim iirc . i am not very familiar with them because i like jotunheim niefelheim most so perhaps air and fire are hard to get with them .

but your jotun gigants should overcome the protection anyways because they have high strength .
the damage throw is : (strength + weapon damage + 2d6 oe) -
(protection + 2d6 oe) .
a living statue has 14 def so it should be not too hard to hit and 2-3 hits from a jotun gigant unit should kill it .

2. Why did my Bane Lord charge into the middle of the undead army and get surrounded, instead of flying to the back and offing leaders like he was ordered to? He only flew halfway down the battlefield.
CC

yeah as vynd said attack rearmost is not too good in most cases you attack the rearside of an enemy squad instead because of the morale checks .

iirc attack archers is without morale checks so attack archers might work better because the pc most times puts his mages in the middle of his archers .

but don't attack ermor with a single SC . they are one of the few nations where SCs are not so good because of the following :
-swarming , so some undeads will always hit
-undead = no healing through lifesteal , so no fatiguerecovery

a special sc with regeneration + reinvigoration items might work but is not worth it because destroying undeads is easy with anti undead battle magic like wither bones .

hope this helps

[LintMan]

So I put plans for Ermor on hold (they didn't seem to be expanding, and all the pop in their provinces is dead already) and went after Tien Chi.

I thought it would be worth it to eliminate Ermor rather than allow them time to recover, but it's definitely lower priority now that Tien Chi has forced the issue.

How the heck do you deal with Living Statues? They're not undead, but they're unbreakable (morale 50) and they have 22 prot! A group of about six went through three provinces of 20 giants each! I have very few earth gems so no Elf Bane. Are there spells that target magic beings? (Is there some sort of index of spell effects anywhere, to save looking through every spell whenever I have a question like this?)

Living statues are very tough. I've generally just resorted to using a mix of overwhelming force and elemental spell attacks against them. Were those 20 giants they killed militia giants or better ones? The militia giants in particular seem to have morale issues and rout quickly. Hurler's boulder damage is huge and might be good against the statues.

Some summoned creatures might also help - the death summons as I mentioned above since they are mostly high morale or unbreakable, but if you can afford it, consider Ether Gate. It's a bit overpriced, but you get a S3D1sorc1 Ether Lord plus fifteen size-3 ethereal Ether Warriors carrying Moonblades (x2 damage vs magic beings!).

As I suspected, Tien Chi were spread pretty thin (apart from where they attacked me), so I've taken a half dozen of his provinces. In the meantime I found an isolated Ermor province, cut off from the rest of Ermor by a plucky Vanheim. So I decided to mop it up on my way further into Tien territory - by this time I had two fully equipped Bane Lords and two similarly decked out Firbolgs.

Unfortunately Vanheim decided to take that Ermor province the same turn, and I accidentally killed their god! I lost a Firbolg in the process too.

Wow, massive bad luck! I hate when you accidentally attack a peaceful nation, and when you kill their god, it's just that much worse. At least now their pretender will have lost some magic power and might have some afflictions, so it's less of a threat.

On the same turn I had decided that I could encroach on Ermor with one of my Bane Lords, and he got surrounded and killed. It was so close though - 240 undead killed out of 253, meaning it was only the summoned skellies that turned the tide.

It's tempting to send them out alone since they're quite tough, but sending banelords in pairs is generally safer. It's usually when I give in to temptation and send them alone that I get surprised and lose one.

That was one bummer of a turn - at least I got to conj 6 and can start calling Lamia queens.

Lamia queens are a real bargain, IMHO.

1. How to deal with Living Statues? (and other high prot non-undead MBs I guess)

I mentioned this above, but in more detail:
- elemental spell attacks are effective. Frozen Heart is a favorite of mine since it is 100 precision, and W1 mages can cast it (IIRC). Immolation is also 100 precision plus armor negating, but that's not as easily available for Jotuns. Falling Frost is also nice if you have any high level water mages.
- Moonblades do 2x damage to magic beings and cost astral gems not earth - give some to your surviing SC's and set them lose.
- I know lots of people think it's overpriced, but I love Ether Gate, and those guys would be quite useful here.
- Since you'll generally have low numbers of giants, morale can be an issue, particularly for the cheaper, lower-morale giants. Firbolg leaders can help offset this because of their Standard ability, as can using the better, higher-morale giants, and having larger Groups.

2. Why did my Bane Lord charge into the middle of the undead army and get surrounded, instead of flying to the back and offing leaders like he was ordered to? He only flew halfway down the battlefield.

Vynd mentioned the morale-check mechanism. I think this is a game-balancing factor to make it harder to take out rearmost leader units reliably. Since you were fighting 250+ units with one banelord, you would have gotten surrounded no matter where your banelord attacked (unless the attack rear actually worked and you took out all his leaders before you could be surrounded)

Boron thinks "attack archers" is better because it doesn't have the morale checks, but I think it does; I haven't seen "attack archers" cause direct movement to attack archers on any more reliable basis than "attack rear" actually attacks the rear. And if the enemy doesn't *have* any archers (such as usually the case with undead), you can't be sure where your units will attack instead.

3. Does the AI assume peace after X turns of no conflict? Caelum just declared war on me again - I didn't notice we'd ever not been at war, but it's true that a few turns had elapsed since we Last fought.

Yes, one of the developers stated that after some amount of turns of non-conflict, the AI can revert to peace status with you, unless you've killed thier god, which means a permanent vendetta.

4. If I equip a Bane Lord with a Flambeau or a Fire Brand, and a Burning Pearl, will he be safe from the fire effects?

There are some odd behaviors with resistance items stacking: some do and some don't. I think there was a thread here about that where someone figured out some of the details of the behavior. I think it was in the bug thread, but you might be able to dig it up with a forum search.

[LintMan]

but don't attack ermor with a single SC . they are one of the few nations where SCs are not so good because of the following :
-swarming , so some undeads will always hit
-undead = no healing through lifesteal , so no fatiguerecovery

For magnate's Firbolg SC's, the loss of lifestealing against undead could definitely lead to fatigue issues, but banelord SC's don't really have that concern since they are 0-fatigue anyway.

Swarming though is a concern for some single sc's as magnate saw. Better to use them in pairs which splits up the attackers, or use soemthing like a trampler SC that eats up swarms of cheap units. A favorite trampler SC of mine:
Summon a Golem, add these items
- Charcoal Shield (gives flame shield)
- Scrutata Volturnus (occasional shock attacks)
- Starshine Skullcap (+1S, +MR)
- Stymphalian Armor (gives flight, fear and tampling!)
- Boots of Quickness
- Amulet of Antimagic
- Stone Bird or Dancing Trident (gives an attack, since he's not carrying a weapon)
With 3S, the golem can teleport from the lab to a distant province, and in battle can cast Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Personal Luck, Twist Fate, and Astral Weapon before stomping away.

That's pretty high-end, though and not well in line with Jotun's magic paths.

[Pickles]

Quoting Lintman
"With 3S, the golem can teleport from the lab to a distant province, and in battle can cast Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Personal Luck, Twist Fate, and Astral Weapon before stomping away."

Hm you have not actually done this I take it - those spells cost over 100 fatigue with the 14 casting fatigue from armour.
I have one of these in a game at the moment he has
Accursed Shield, Main gauche of parrying, Wraith crown, Wings, boots, lucky charm & bracers of defence. The items duplicate his spells of course & he is a raider not a full on SC & he has yet to really take part in a proper battle.
I am Ulm with Forge of the Ancients & the items were a song. He has good prot & defence for a Golem but is magically a bit vulnerable I suppose - this has not come up in games I have played yet.
I just lost a differently equipped one when it fatigued out (It was an error to leave the Army with the relief casting witches)

Pickles

[LintMan]

Quoting Lintman
"With 3S, the golem can teleport from the lab to a distant province, and in battle can cast Body Ethereal, Astral Shield, Personal Luck, Twist Fate, and Astral Weapon before stomping away."

Hm you have not actually done this I take it - those spells cost over 100 fatigue with the 14 casting fatigue from armour.

I have done this and assorted variants of it multiple times, and I've gotten them a bit mixed up. I think I actually did have this exact setup in 1-2 battles and recall the golem fatiging out for a few turns before waking up to stomp its enemies. In those cases, though, the enemies couldn't really scratch it even when it was passed out.

Anyway, if you delete astral weapon from the list, you won't fatigue out. aw isn't that critical, since we're really planning for trampling damage here. If I expected to encounter some un-trampleable enemies (ie: size 5-6), though, I'd put aw back in and remove twist fate

I just lost a differently equipped one when it fatigued out (It was an error to leave the Army with the relief casting witches)

Why did it fatigue out? What spells were you casting?

[deccan]

Sorry, this is turning into a bit of an AAR (or rather During) - apols.

Hey, I for one enjoy reading it.