LA Ermor - myth, legend, or overrated tripe?

[TexasHawk]

Interesting.

It seems that you could make a hugely overpowered Pretender by shifting the scales towards all the bad stuff (since that's the point) and creating a hellacious undead SC this way. I was playing with the pretender creator and you can get a lot of points doing it this way, to boost your dominion to 10, and get your death and fire magics to 8 each with some points still left if you take a less powerful form.

Beyond priests and holy items, it just seems to me that LA Ermor is pretty much unstoppable played properly. I didn't play D2 so I don't know the comparisons, but giving this race even 10 turns unmolested seems to be asking for it later. I was under the impression that people won't play someone who was good with Ermor, maybe I'm wrong? That's my question; is it considered 'politically correct' to min-max this particular race given its unique advantages and will people be OK with that?

[Meglobob]

TexasHawk said:
It seems that you could make a hugely overpowered Pretender by shifting the scales towards all the bad stuff (since that's the point) and creating a hellacious undead SC this way. I was playing with the pretender creator and you can get a lot of points doing it this way, to boost your dominion to 10, and get your death and fire magics to 8 each with some points still left if you take a less powerful form.

Beyond priests and holy items, it just seems to me that LA Ermor is pretty much unstoppable played properly.

I agree completely with your first point, when I played LA Ermor I had design points left over that I did not know what to do with, unheard of.

However, LA Ermor is very, very stoppable because there are just so many anti-undead spells and 95% of Ermors army is complete chaff which falls like the leaves in autumn.

Add to this Ermor is hated because of its dominion, so no friends (seriously lethal in MP) and its army grapth and province, castle count go off the scale. Which leads players to form an alliance to destroy Ermor, time and time again. Also it soon becomes 'unfun' to play as you after move hordes of chaff around every turn and the bigger your empire the worse it gets.

[Velusion]

Meglobob said:

I agree completely with your first point, when I played LA Ermor I had design points left over that I did not know what to do with, unheard of.

However, LA Ermor is very, very stoppable because there are just so many anti-undead spells and 95% of Ermors army is complete chaff which falls like the leaves in autumn.

Add to this Ermor is hated because of its dominion, so no friends (seriously lethal in MP) and its army grapth and province, castle count go off the scale. Which leads players to form an alliance to destroy Ermor, time and time again. Also it soon becomes 'unfun' to play as you after move hordes of chaff around every turn and the bigger your empire the worse it gets.

Yea... you NEED those extra points in MP for LA Ermor. I was able to make a decent triple bless pretender, even though ermor's sacred troops are rather rare/expensive (didn't feel like going the SC way).

[Archonsod]

TexasHawk said:
Beyond priests and holy items, it just seems to me that LA Ermor is pretty much unstoppable played properly.

Most nations are unstoppable if played properly

The big problem with Ermor is that it's larger weaknesses are both incredibly hard to cover as Ermor, and easy to exploit for anyone going against Ermor. I tend to find that Ermor is one of those armies which encourage you to think outside the box - do what everyone expects and you'll be taken apart quite swiftly.

[Aleph]

In my most recent game, 4 Blade Winders + 10 generic priests has led me to quite a lot of battles vs. LA Ermor where I lose 0-5 regular troops and they lose 500+... and I'm not particularly clever, I'm sure many can do much better. The chaff instantly explode when exposed to any AoE attacks, they really need the better summons to help them survive. Again, I find MA Ermor more dangerous because they can have "priest killer" armies of regular troops

Also - in SP, where they are fairly annoying due to the computer's refusal for other nations to use appropriate counters, LA Ermor pretty much dies the instant they are exposed to Astral Corruption. No blood magic, no gold recruitable troops, it takes a mage to make a mage... a couple turns later all they have is dominion freespawn and bishops, and every one you take is one that can't be replaced.

[Gandalf Parker]

In Solo Play you actually can counter Ermor using the other nations. Find one thats a neighbor to it and send them gifts. Not something like Flambeaugh which will make them hard for you to take out later. One of the best is Herald Lance. That will help that nation hold back Ermor, but not be too much of a problem to you when you finally get to that part of the map.

[Shovah32]

On pretender design or LA Ermor:
I almost always take a lich queen. All negative scales generally with luck 2-3 and magic 1 or 3. The queen gets maybe 6 death and then various other magics for summoning and forging.

[TirAsleen]

played ermor since dom1.

i like ashen empire a lot its one of the reasion that makes this game so fantastic and innovative, the other is R'yleh, now if there would be new functions for the interface to controll all these free spawn chaff better it would be gold. can be really annyoing on big maps.

Ashen Empire in dom3 is weak at the beginning of a game or on smaller maps. ON big maps its possible to pillage vast amounts of porovinces ruining everyones economy and force everyone to use food supply items or units that do not need to eat. ermor LA, however starts out really weak, not in single though but in MP its easy to exploit their low magic res chaff with banishments and priests. dust to dust is an ubber cheap spell anti undead spell availible with just 1 death mage pic. and this is much worser than banishment it ignores magic resistence. take an undead prince and see him killing dozens of priests and he never gets a scratch due to high magic resistence, additonally i use him with either magic res item or cast magic res as a astral spell. all my pretenders for ashen empire do start with high astral and death magic.

so you need a good SC to survive early part of the game, taking something else is a risk in non SP games that ia m very sure of but inever got banished back to the underworld to hell must be fun too

later soulgate is really fantastaic, i casted it in many games now with high dominion you get ethereal undead(also ethereal ermor legions) with good stats and no "never heals" ablity, so they do regenerate hp too. problem with it is conj8 and cost a ton too.

for scales all -3(taking cold here, and magic drain just 2) and +3 luck. 3misfortune may give more design points but i am sure its not worth it on bigger maps. maybe smaller maps. on bigger maps with high luck they get extra gold, gem income and so on. the zealots and millitia are very annyoing...so i usually send them to death quickly to get rid of the annoying upkeep.

my overall strategy with them so far is to summon a lot of dusk elders to get the most needed research up and scout the enemy if he is random to know his nation, its midgard or similar glamour abuse i go for enchant4 - Behemoth to trample them. alteriation is pretty much a no brainer with SC to have on at least lvl3 if he does not start with ethereal. rest goes into constr.4 to get skull mentor for quick research, its needed for magic drain scale anyways. rest goes into conjuration. additonal i make asap 2 groups of dusk elders with allt he 4 elements in magic paths + astral and rarely blood to search magic sites more quickly as it takes too long with just pretender on medium-large maps.

my pretender had 4 nature, 6 astral, death9. with this you can try to go for the lictor summons and cast htem with black laurels still gives 2 additional lictors. they are all heavy armored and sacred and astral gives them most needed +2 magic res, with drain scale its +3magic res.

usually its good enough on big maps to just conquer your nearest lands and pillage whats far away and slowly go backwards to your capitol using a scorched earth method, it gives gold for more temples, labs and castles and ruin everyones world except for yourself. with soulgate up soonish and high dominion the game will be in your favour quickly.

except you get obliterated with dust to dust or wither bones....really unfair spells

btw, i think dusk elders and arch bishops can be a bit cheaper...this hurts a lot early on. i am not sure to survive a rush with that? maybe pillage home province and surroundings take sphinx and using a lot of ghouls to defend with?

anyways to summarize, i feel AE is a lot weaker now in the early phase of the game. and yeah, R'yleh and MA ermor is maybe a lesser risk than taking AE.

also want to make a suggestion, namely. i would like to see more pretender choices here for LA Ermor. Since they are really focused on a powerful pretender more choices are logical. i think Ashen Empire could have a more powerful and special Prince of Death and i wonder why jortundheim/niefelheim always got the draco lich and bog mummy but not ermor where it suits much more. its nice to have the lich queen but more choices would be more fun here. i think we have her since dom1. i know lich, ghost king or lich queen is the most obvious choice, but PoD with immortaly ablity added and a better special ability(just gives like 1-3 longdead/turn) would have been more fun, just for ashen empire.....or else is just taking some lich and casting tatarian gate and make someone with a lot hp your prophet.

[Gandalf Parker]

I always thought that alot of the pretenders would work well for Ermor, and even some non-pretenders. Eater of the Dead? Horrors? Harvester? Ive enjoyed creating maps with boosted Ermor as an AI and building them a god around such units.