The dominion strength can save the day

[Gandalf Parker]

You might try a reverse of my usual tactic. To keep Ermor from taking me out in large solo games I like to find out who is near them (hopefully Marignon) and send them helpful items such as anti-undead items. That way they can hold back Ermor and I know that such items wont help them much against me when I finally get there.

Maybe you can find out who is near Marignon and send them gold or gems to help them take out Marignon. Then you can take out your ex-ally easier than you would Marignon.

[Taqwus]

Seem to recall that Marignon really is intended that way -- the faithful against the darkness. Of course, things get a little wacky in the late era...

Might caution that overpowering LA Ermor dominion in an MP game might be trickier; while a human Ashen Empire player might go for a monstrously high dominion fueled by horrible scales, and build fort/temple complexes to push it out and get better undead, will an AI do as much? Not sure. It's particularly weak at maintaining dominion with EA/LA Mictlan.

OTOH, other human players tend to frown upon having their provinces permanently wrecked by an Ashen Empire dominion, so doing that makes diplomacy tricky...


Dominion will also be useful in certain less-extreme circumstances; Arcosephale automatically gets intel reports in its dominion, and there are certain global enchantments whose effectiveness is related, too. Plus it's useful for cranking out sacred troops.

[krpeters]

I find victory-by-dominion a very useful strategy. It works great against ocean races -- why fight them on their own turf, when you can sit on land and dominionize them to zip? With regards to Ermor, Marginon is great for this too, on account of stealthy priests. Hide them in Ermor's territory, preach him down to nothing... it also reduces his reinforcements massively.

And yes, LA-Ermor is effectively a "sea" race, undead don't breathe. One of many reasons to hate Ermor (the biggest being that if you conquer his territory, you get dead lands with no value)

[Nick_K]

Of course, if your dominion is very strong against AI ermor, the fire spell Purgatory might be useful...