Ermor themes, too strong?

[Norfleet]

Ermor is not as strong as many would believe. Here's a breakdown of Ermor, from the perspective of an avid Ermor player:

Pros:
Receives many free troops and does not pay upkeep on them.
Defiles land, making it inhospitable to invaders - invaders will starve, or at very least, gain little for taking a depopulated province.
Does not require gold or resources to recruit troops.
Unaffected by negative scales and can spend many points on pretender and strong dominion.
Can have enormous quantities of troops.
Units do not eat - supply is never a problem - cannot starve if sieged.
Lack of gold economy combined with ubiquity of troops makes hit-and-run raiding attacks against Ermor largely meaningless.
Can besiege forts easily: Large numbers quickly tear down any defense.
Large numbers of troops spawning across empire makes fighting on multiple fronts easy and even enjoyable.
AE - Units are mindless and cannot be routed.
SG - Units are ethereal and difficult to hit normally
SG - difficult to besiege: Not mindless and can easily repair fortresses due to numbers.

Cons:
National mages are one-dimensional and not very flexible - Difficult to summon units other than more undead.
Lack of population gives poor gold/res income -Difficult to recruit independent mages, nearly impossible to recruit independent troops.
Units all share single weakness which can be specifically targetted by many spells.
Ermor cannot preach effectively: Ermorian priests are unable to preach, and recruited independent priests will lose a rank of priestly power and become unholy - ability to preach suffers accordingly.
Troops spawning in random places are difficult to gather.
AE - Units are exceptionally weak and easily killed; will dissolve without a fight if commanders are not present or slain
SG - Units suffer from ubiquitous 0 protection and are highly susceptible to magical damage.
Does not have any effective means of dealing with opposing undead that will not kill more of your own troops!

It is popularly believed that if Ermor is left uncontained, it will grow to be unstoppable. This is not inherently true, or at least more true, of Ermor: All nations, if left unchecked, will reach a point where stopping them becomes very difficult. Ermor's seemingly exponential army growth makes it seem very intimidating, but an Ermorian army is one-dimensional and can often be killed in enormous quantity without even trying: Many spells specifically target the Ermorian legion: Casting Purgatory can make your dominion nearly impenetrable as any Ermorian legion entering will take absolutely massive casualties for every turn spent in your dominion. Solar Brilliance can annihilate entire armies of undead in in a matter of rounds. Even conventional spells can be used to devastating effect: Ermor's troops are often so numerous that it is nearly impossible for even a one-eyed Abysian to fail to hit something, and they are weak enough that most spells will kill or or inflict great harm.

Assuming that you have researched the spells that will trivially allow you to dispatch even huge hordes of undead, and can employ them successfully, the only threat you face is trying to fend off attacks which can very easily come from all directions at once. However, due to the lack of variety in Ermor's magic, it is unlikely that any but a few attacks will be supported with anything other than death magic, which is very limited in what it will affect and often acts slowly.

The other threat you face is the Ermor pretender, who will likely be a very potent SC: However, if it tows chaff around, it will be subject to auto-routing when in enemy dominion, and since Ermor lacks the ability to effectively preach, especially by stealth, it has difficulty pushing dominion into areas that have strongly opposing enemy dominions: If your dominion is weak, however, you must shore it up with priests and temples, or Ermor's temple spread will quickly overwhelm yours and ruin your lands. Having many priests preaching out Ermor's dominion also has other collateral benefits on defense: Banish can erase huge tracts of undead, particularly Ashen Empire undead, with their far insuperior MR. Ermor's pretender is only really dangerous if you are fighting in Ermorian dominion, and killing it with one of many spells that work well against SCs (Drain Life, Petrify, etc.) can turn the tables if it attacks without support or loses all of its support.

In short, it is absolutely NOT necessary to form a massive coalition and turn the game into a gigantic anti-undead crusade: It is perfectly possible for most nations to take on an Ermor of relatively equal size unassisted...but it requires specific knowledge of how to best exploit Ermor's weaknesses: A straightforward, hamhanded tactic that works on the normal living races can fail disastrously against Ermor and leave you greatly weakened. Don't let yourself be goaded into a rash campaign: Act with patience and prudence, not a knee-jerk reaction of "Ermor must die!". Ermor, even well-developed, can be driven back by a methodical approach.

[lonewolf]

...and that, ladies and gentlemen, must be the best summary of Ermor I've ever ever seen, lurking here.

Norfleet, why not go play something else with equal dedication and report likewise? I think it would be an excellent sequel!

[Vynd]

Another thing I've been noticing about Ermor is that its gem income isn't all that impressive. It can find Death Gems easily enough, if they are out there. But it needs all the Death Gems it can get for summoning more leaders.

Beyond that, all you're going to get are the things your death 3, random 1 mages can find, and whatever you're willing to devote your pretender to searching for. Granted, your Pretender will be an excellent mage so it can probably find lots of magic sites, but that involves a lot of turns devoted to moving around and searching, when you could really use its help in fighting, researching, casting rituals, etc.

[Gandalf Parker]

A nation can be as powerful as they want and still not be unbalancing to Dominions2 as a whole. It can seem unfairly balanced in one game such as Ermor vs Ulm.

But as long as Marignon is a selectable nation, Ermor is not an automatic winner. Marignon doesnt have the problem of investing in more priests than they can use later. They almost cant avoid making lots of priests. And fire magic. For as powerful as Ermor seems, Marignon is an equal in exactly the right areas. But then, Marignon has trouble going against Ulm.

So balance is achieved. Not in nation against nation (to do that would require that all pieces be equal but just with different colors like a game of chess or risk). Ermor is a threat to Ulm, while Ulm can roll over Marignon, and Marignon can bLast Ermor (rock, paper, scissors). It gets deeper than that of course with 17 nations (and another on the way) but the basis is there. Any of the nations can seem out of balance against certain nations, but have another nations seem almost ready-built to counter their best tactics. Pros and Cons.

Oh yeah, and I agree. Norfleet, that is an excellent write-up on Ermor.

[ April 10, 2004, 13:27: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
It gets deeper than that of course with 17 nations (and another on the way) but the basis is there.

Is the "new water nation" really a nation or is it "just" a new theme for Pangaea? Or are you talking about something else?

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Endoperez:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
It gets deeper than that of course with 17 nations (and another on the way) but the basis is there.

Is the "new water nation" really a nation or is it "just" a new theme for Pangaea? Or are you talking about something else?

---

If I remember correctly Kristoffer referred to it as a 3rd water nation. Ive modified my map selection criteria to include maps which have 3 equal-sized oceans in preparation. Although of course we have no idea how long it will be before it shows up.

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Cohen:
So on if the real problem is an SC Pretender modify scales for Ermor ... so that Ermor won't gain any points from bad scales ...

Ermor shall have at least the same points of a commond pretender for making his own.

A simpler solution would be to increase the cost of the undead themes (Living Ermor can't ignore bad scales), *if* they really are a problem. I don't think they are - AE/SG have large weaknesses to offset their strengths. Their main trick that's hard to counter is an undead supercombatant god, and it's possible that there should be more and/or better counters to undead supercombatant gods; but that isn't limited to dead Ermors although it may be most severe with them. (They would also be counters to undead supercombatant Wraith Centurions and Vampire Counts too, of course.) It's also very possible that the Vampire Queen and/or Lich Queen should cost more points - this would leave fewer points for their magical powers, even in the hands of an undead Ermor.

Anyway, undead Ermor can't ignore all bad scales: drain is very bad, misfortune is still bad although not as bad as for living nations. They pretty much rely on luck/magic to get a half decent gem income. They do benefit from cold (chill auras) and death (starve the living), and pretty much ignore turmoil and sloth, though.