Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions

[Shangrila00]

Heh, Ancestor Smiths are fun, though honestly they don't really work because their hp is too low. But ones with nature randoms have very high stats once they turn young, have magic fear inducing swords, and have potential access to some really powerful buffs.

Purely for fun, take 2 Smiths with nature randoms with slave crystals, and one with a master crystal, crystal shield and cheap weapon. The master casts earthpower, invulnerability, strength of gaia, elemental fortitude, and soul vortex, the slaves cast between them: bless, weapons of sharpness, strength of giants, legions of steel, and iron will, then all 3 attack. They are a lot harder to kill than you might expect thanks to 5 hp regen and soul vortex, mainly vulnerable to a critical early before they suck enough souls to deal with the fatigue from buffing, less so if you have a high earth bless as you really should with all sacred mages. Have a master of the way cast quickness, luck, and body ethereal on them for even more thematic fun. Sure, for 40+ gems, you could probably get and equip a low end SC, but is that as cool as 3 old guys hacking through everything in their path?

[Legendary League]

The Virtue and Moloch are also powerful expansion gods (in CBM), though you need to be careful with the virtue early on as it cannot face heavy cavalry until a level or two of research in alteration (for personal luck and eventual mistform). Twist fate+air shield early on in conjunction with naturally high awe allows the Virtue to take on most indies barring undead (and before other alteration buffs). The Moloch starts out with fear (which can be boosted) and combined with the imp screen it starts with to soak up arrows also clears indies fast.

[Hrum]

This doesn't answer your general questions, but I think the guys here have already addressed those better than I could.

However, since I recently ran across this LA Ermor AAR written by Calahan and you're playing against Ermor I thought this might be of interest to you:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...033#post709033

It isn't a turn by turn DAR/AAR, it's more like a wrap-up of how his game went / how victory was achieved with Ermor. I thought it was a great read. It's interesting not just if you're interested in playing Ermor, but also in terms of what his concerns were - what opponent strategies / tactics might have potentially posed the greatest risk to his nation of undead.

You probably already know about Banishment and Cleansing Water, but just in case you weren't aware of how useful they are against undead, here's a breakdown of what they do at various mage path levels (hopefully I did my math right on these)...

Banishment (AN, resisted by MR, base fat 0)
H1 dmg 5; aoe 4; rg 20; fat 0 + enc
H2 dmg 7; aoe 6; rg 25; fat 0 + enc
H3 dmg 9; aoe 8; rg 30; fat 0 + enc

Cleansing Water (Evo 6, AN, not resistable, base fat 20)
W2 dmg 5; aoe 4; rg 20; fat 20 + enc
W3 dmg 6; aoe 5; rg 25; fat 10 + enc
W4 dmg 7; aoe 6; rg 30; fat 7 + enc

Of course, if you're using Amhazair's Bane Lord example SC/thug, it may not be ideal to have mages in the same army spamming low precision anti-undead spells. Although, with the decent MR of the Bane Lord you could probably get away with the Banishment spamming - Cleansing Water not so much. You could always just have the Bane Lord operate independently from your anti-undead magic spammers.

I feel like there are some great anti-undead spells that death mages have access to, but I can't recall what they are at the moment. In early/mid-game I mean (before undead mastery)..?

--
Edit: rdonj beat me to the punch on Cleansing Water, and also answered my question re: Wither Bones.

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by Olm

Regarding expansion with combat pretenders:

Don't neglect protection! IMO prot 12 is by far not enough, especially if you haven't got a decent shield.
All your fear, awe and even petrification of the Gorgon (a great SC pretender!) will help you nothing against a good bunch of ranged units.
As MA Man I met a Wyrm as well as a Prince of Death early in the game with a medium sized army of Longbowmen (~30).
The Wyrm barely escaped due to his high HP, the PoD due to flying. They both didn't stand a chance.
So prepare for ranged units. High protection is the easiest. If you don't have it you should have ethearelness, mistform, air shield or something the like.

Then again, 30 longbowmen is a more serious ranged* threat than you'll find in most any independent province, while the independents will at the same time be more predictable due to (lack of) scripting. It's true medium protection won't come even close to save you in and of itself, but it's enough to lower the damage from the average hit enough to survive the few that come through when coupled with other defences. (Awe and massive fear for PoD, Awe, fear and regeneration for the Wyrm, to take the ones you mentioned. Both of which are classic examples of exapnsion pretenders who make do with medium protection.)


* The ranged part is important here, since ranged attacks ignore awe. Against independents this can be partially worked around by standing far back and scripting a couple of holds before attacking, leading to the archers shooting from maximum range, which, coupled with significantly worse stats than your Manx longbowmen will have most arrows scatter around the target and hit their own melee buddies instead, with the ones that do hit doing an average** of -2 damage due to protection. This is though, why I included massed crosbowmen to the "dangerous" independents, as crossbow shots do have the punch to do damage when they do actually hit.

** Can't remember what's the actual statistical term for what I'm trying to say. Median maybe? In any case, you know what I mean.

[parone]

plus, remmember Man's longbowmen are bada**, higher stregnth and precision. and with any buffs(read windaid or fire) they are an awesome anti SC/anti thug weapon if the appropriate counter measures aren't taken.

counters to counters to counters...that's why everytime you click on the message that says "there was a battle it..."it's cool, even if you mostly get smoked, like me

[parone]

one semi negative about LA ermor, tho, is basically, you have to rush them. and it is a non productive rush(for the rusher). other players who are scouting can wait for you to rush, then hit your back door.

so you can be kind of damd if you do, damd if you don't vs LA Ermor. i have no idea how you would nerf them, since they r so different from other nations, and i am very inexperienced.

but it would seem something could be done to make them easier to play against.

[Legendary League]

I would suggest trying to field net 0 encumbrance thugs, like a kitted out Ancestor Smith with the right equipment and the selfbuffs it can cast. As LA T'ien C'hi, you have alot of access to anti-undead spells like Solar Rays, Cleansing Water, Blade Wind, and communion'd banishments (less effective against shielded chaff), and Earthquake (would definitely recommend this if you're dealing with large armies of chaff). Ermor's power lies in their army of chaff, and some of their major battle magics (Darkness, etc.) are difficult to deal with combined with their army buffs (Power and Protection of the Sepulchre, the latter is defensive and MR negates easily, so it's not as bad as the former, while the former is a considerable Attack Skill and Movement buff), and grotesquely large numbers. Best way to beat them is with power battle magics of your own, blessed or elite units designed to defeat them (normally with a high enough Earth bless to keep them 0 fatigue), or thugs and SCs designed to counter Ermor.

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by parone

one semi negative about LA ermor, tho, is basically, you have to rush them. and it is a non productive rush(for the rusher). other players who are scouting can wait for you to rush, then hit your back door.

so you can be kind of damd if you do, damd if you don't vs LA Ermor. i have no idea how you would nerf them, since they r so different from other nations, and i am very inexperienced.

but it would seem something could be done to make them easier to play against.

That's only if you're playing with suicidal people, because stabbing Ermor's neighbours gives Ermor a better chance at survival, which means it gets more time to nuke more provinces and generate an unstoppable critical mass. Then everybody dies. It's in nobody's interest to help Ermor in any way, shape or form.

Also, if you get do rush them early, it's not a 100% unproductive deal: you get 15 shiny death gems per turn out of it, as well as whatever D sites Ermor had been in a hurry to uncover (and those provinces likely won't be raided either, since they'll starve everyone and don't produce a single coin). Plus, y'know, you're not in danger of getting rolled by Ermor any more, so there's that too .

[parone]

if a province is totally dead, is there anyway to regenerate it with neutral scales?

[bbz]

Yea you can wish for population. but its not worth it. Even with growth 3 provinces that have very few people left, won't be able to get back to normal before the game is over probably.(the other thing is getting a lucky event of some people migrating to that province, but that is not with neutral scales you need luck and growth I think to unlock that event)

Because of how hard it is to recuperate a dead province, In late game wishing for armageddon(2-3 times) is a good counter against blood hunting nations.