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.