Soul Gate vs. Ashen Empire & Ermor Setup

[quantum_mechani]

Sunray_be said:


Weaknesses:
- expensive mages (but 1/2 upkeep),

They are not sacred or unholy, so I don't think so.

[archaeolept]

yah i didn't think they were, but zen also felt that they got half upkeep. it should be easy to check

[Boron]

hm so nowhere detailed info on freespawns ?

Like 2x dominionstrength freespawns and 10% chance on stronger freespawns etc. ?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

quantum_mechani said:
They are not sacred or unholy, so I don't think so.

Actually they are sacred and have halved upkeep, but for some mysterious reason the 'sacred' icon doesn't appear on them (although strangely, it's back again when they lose their leader status).

[Vynd]

Thufir said:

2) I don't quite understand how bless effects work (or don't work) w/ unholy. The "Unholy Blessing" spells say that they activate the "powers of an unholy troop". Does this have anything to do with the bless effects that come from your pretender? If not, is there any point in considering bless effects w/ your pretender design?

The Unholy Blessing spells are like Blessing spells for Unholy units. So yeah, they are based off of the bless effects of your Pretender.

3) In the case of SG, it seems reasonable to choose a putz as your initial prophet, until you can afford a Wraith consul. However, I've heard other choices argued regarding Ermor prophets. Is it not the case that going from four to five in unholy level is quite valuable (as with the equivalent for holy prophets)? The fifth level "Power of the Sepulchre" spell seems pretty useful, though I can well imagine that its painful to spend the 35 death gems for a Wraith Consul is pretty painful, early on.

Power of the Sepulchre is a great spell. Moreso, I think, for AE than SG, since it affects the whole battlefield and AE gets even more free undead troops than SG does. But well worth prophetizing a lvl4 priest for with either nation, I would think.

Another thing to consider is that the more powerful your unholy priest is, the better it is at Reanimating. For AE, a lvl5 Unholy priest can reanimate lictors (the AE Wright substitute). I believe that a lvl5 SG priest can reanimate Ghosts, but I could be wrong about that.

[alexti]

Sunray_be said:
Dont forget the Broken Empire (base) theme. Actually my favorite. SG and AE have both a terrible Achille's heel in MP games : all other players will hate you.

Yep, and they will keep hating Ermor by reflex. After destroying Ermor, they may realize it was Broken Empire though

[Taqwus]

Top-level SG unholies get to reanimate Apparitions, IIRC, at the added cost of population. The Apparitions are ghostly fellers with a disease-causing aura.

Hm, regarding theme confusion... it bothers me that for provinces of enemy dominion, even if you're occupying them or have a spy there it won't tell you the theme, or even which is the worshipped pretender. Sometimes this is fairly odd, e.g. you'd think that Miasma would be self-evident, as would Carrion Woods, and that the dead Ermor themes would also be readily clear (although not necessarily distinguishable).