Paper, Rock, Marignon!

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
Sure, I've got no problems with nations being dramatically different, but I think they should be based around rational concepts. Nothing like the killer dominions.

"I've got an idea! We have this theme that uses hordes of free troops! Because they're free, you don't need scales to support them, so they'll have a beefy SC Pretender ALL THE TIME! Oh, and their dominion KILLS EVERYONE, so armies can't invade without nature magic or fay boars! And when they do, the land is TOTALLY USELESS because EVERYONE'S DEAD!"

I somehow don't think that those were the guiding concepts of Ermor's killer dominions, which are thematic in nature: Ermor is a lifeless nation composed nearly entirely of the undead. It's thematic that all of the population dies and is replaced by undead units.

The drawback being that you lose the ability to effectively produce any OTHER units, because your population is 0 and cannot support such an endeavor, and your army is entirely one-dimensional. There are so many spells and effects designed specifically to eradicate the undead that it's not funny. Practically every offensively-oriented magic path has SOMETHING for specifically wasting undead.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Cheezeninja:
Maybe thats just Ermor's flavor... they can be used well by almost anyone, they scare people alot, and the AI can't handle them well. Offsetting this is the perception people have of all these things which causes people to gang up on them.

If the only drawback to Ermor's power was purely perceptual, and people would automatically lose if they failed to gang up on Ermor, then Ermor WOULD be overpowered.

This is not really the case: Well-played, any nation stands a decent chance of defeating Ermor alone. Some nations are better at doing this at different stages in the game than others. Ulm, for instance, stands a good chance at crushing AE Ermor in an early rush, provided that Ermor's pretender can be countered: However, later in the game, Ulm will falter against any flavor of dead Ermor because it is unable to easily sustain its dominion against the increasingly large hordes.

However, Ermor is very simple for even a novice player to use at a decent level of play: Most of Ermor is blunt and easy to get a handle on, and requires little of the fine nuances of other nations. Ultimately, however, Ermor proves one-dimensional. Once you get good at that dimension, you have little else available to you. Other nations have more depth, but a newbie is rarely able to perceive and plumb those depths.

As a result, the common response becomes "Gang Up On Ermor". This rather hamhanded approach, however, targets Ermor's strengths rather than its weaknesses. Thus, Ermor is quickly perceived to be overpowered because everyone pits what could very well be one of their weaknesses against Ermor's strength and attempts to overwhelm it by brute force. Unfortunately, you learn very little this way.

On the other hand, you can make this work for you, provided you do not allow Ermor to intimidate you: People will give you their gold, their gems, their provinces, and leave you alone and unmolested, so long as you profess to be fighting Ermor. Suckers.

[Cheezeninja]

Nature magic is FAR from the only way around the lack of supplies. Commanders never starve, all you really need is troops that dont eat. I've had great success in SP with Devils, but any of the lifeless troops or troops that dont need food work.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
...Ermor's killer dominions...
The drawback being that you lose the ability to effectively produce any OTHER units, because your population is 0 and cannot support such an endeavor, and your army is entirely one-dimensional. ...

It doesn't have to be entirely one-dimensional. The same units enemies can summon to survive in Ermorian dominion, can be summoned by Ermor, particularly if the Ermorian pretender is a rainbow mage who site-searches.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
Sure, I've got no problems with nations being dramatically different, but I think they should be based around rational concepts. Nothing like the killer dominions.

"I've got an idea! We have this theme that uses hordes of free troops! Because they're free, you don't need scales to support them, so they'll have a beefy SC Pretender ALL THE TIME! Oh, and their dominion KILLS EVERYONE, so armies can't invade without nature magic or fay boars! And when they do, the land is TOTALLY USELESS because EVERYONE'S DEAD!"

Except not.

1) Ashen Ermor is quite rational. Powerful death magic begets undead.

2) Having everyone die is definitely not "free"!

3) The dominion doesn't kill everyone. As mentioned already, there are many of ways to overcome lack of supply, and the dominion doesn't kill troops, nor inconvenience leaders, or any of the many units who need not eat, or who generate supplies.

4) Unpopulated lands are far from totally useless. They can still be full of magic sites which can be more valuable than population. They also serve as obstacles to food-eating armies led by inexperienced players.

PvK

[velk]

particularly if the Ermorian pretender is a rainbow mage who site-searches.

All ashen empire pretenders are rainbow mages to some degree - what else are you going to spend the excess points on ?

[tinkthank]

A different question:

Ulm beats Marignon on small maps / shorter games?? Really? I dont understand that.

[Yossar]

Originally posted by velk:

quote:

---

particularly if the Ermorian pretender is a rainbow mage who site-searches.

All ashen empire pretenders are rainbow mages to some degree - what else are you going to spend the excess points on ?

---

You don't have to make a rainbow Vampire Queen. VQ may by the strongest SC pretender but taking something else with a couple paths really high along with fortune and magic can be viable and will also eat up a lot of points.

[Anglachel]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
On the other hand, you can make this work for you, provided you do not allow Ermor to intimidate you: People will give you their gold, their gems, their provinces, and leave you alone and unmolested, so long as you profess to be fighting Ermor. Suckers.

Rofl. Funny stuff.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cohen:
The Ermor problem (or better, advantage) is that he can take a lot of points from scales, getting 600 points more or less (Turmoil 3, Death 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3 = 480.

C'Tis can do nearly exactly the same thing, taking order 3, sloth 3, heat 2, and misfortune 2 with Miasma and a dominion strength of 9 or 10.