Questions for those more knowledgable than me(so almost anyone)..

[Zurai]

One thing I'm surprised Norfleet fumbled the response for, considering he's an ermor fanatic:

Ermor will, at apparantly random times, have 3-4 Ermor Cultists appear in a random enemy controlled province along with a number of ghouls and attack that province. This is entirely out of your control, but if they win the fight you keep the province.

That's what you saw when you had the battle halfway across the world.