Ermor themes, too strong?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I don't happen to have Dominions 1, so I have no idea what you're talking about. Besides, it is irrelevant: Ermor will always have a more ridiculously huge number of troops than a living nation:

No, it really isn't irrelevant. In Dominions I, a living nation player had more than twice as much gold to throw around eac and every turn than they do now. That translates into a lot more units and especially a lot more mages and priests to handle the undead.

Incorrect: There is a maximum number of troops that Ermor (or any nation) is allowed to have, after which Ermor will not be able to receive any more troops, and any attempts to summon better troops risks failure due to this limit.

Yes, and we all know that every other nation can afford to have 32767 troops plus several dozen mages sitting around.

This is certainly an advantage, but I don't see it as overwhelming: Other nations are perfectly capable of switching to summoned, no-upkeep mages as well.

So what, they're supposed to squander their death gems (if they can even find them affordably with their mages) empowering a mage, then summoning spectres?

[quote]I see you've caught onto my remote temple burning strategy. Building fortresses in every province with a temple, this is basically necessary anyway: Ghost Riders is not the only remote-raiding spell, and fliers, or flying SCs, can easily maraud completely unchecked, leaving you to try to guess their next move in a giant, extremely aggravating, whack-a-mole, unless you build forts.[quote]

Ghost riders is the _only_ remote attack spell that comes anywhere near its power level. Army of the dead doesn't supply you with a wraith lord.

Province defense can stop very lightweight attacks, but is generally worthless against a human player, and there is really no point to using it other than to run off scouts.

Province defense of 10 can stop just about any remote attack spell other than ghost riders cold.

Fortresses, no matter how lousy, however, do something that NO amount of PD can do: No matter HOW large the attacking army is, you will always buy yourself a minimum of one turn to respond.

And the typical fort costs 300-450 gold, which is far too expensive to build in every province other than if you plan to bore your opponents to death.

It should also be noted that Ermor is not even the only nation capable of using remote summons, including Ghost Riders. I regularly employ the use of Ghost Riders for temple burnings as living nations as well.

The only other nation that has cheap access to Ghost Riders is C'Tis.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
No, it really isn't irrelevant. In Dominions I, a living nation player had more than twice as much gold to throw around eac and every turn than they do now. That translates into a lot more units and especially a lot more mages and priests to handle the undead.

If you really feel it's such a problem, you can always choose to play on Rich world: That would give you your Dominions I balance back. Me, I think you're just spoiled by too much gold.

Yes, and we all know that every other nation can afford to have 32767 troops plus several dozen mages sitting around.

This from the guy who claimed to have several hundred mystics and astrologers camping out in his capitol?

So what, they're supposed to squander their death gems (if they can even find them affordably with their mages) empowering a mage, then summoning spectres?

If you don't HAVE any death mages, it's a little hard to do anything else with your death gems. It's not that hard to find and equip a death-1 or 2 mage with equipment needed to forge more +death items.

Province defense of 10 can stop just about any remote attack spell other than ghost riders cold.

I've overrun PD 10 with Arouse Hunger, Imprint Souls, Hordes from Hell....PD is simply unable to cope. If you can't beat it with just one casting, use two or three. What are you, the AI? Do you not care if you succeed or fail? Anything worth doing is worth doing with excessive force.

[quote]And the typical fort costs 300-450 gold, which is far too expensive to build in every province other than if you plan to bore your opponents to death.[/QUOTE
When you consider how much it would cost you to maintain a standing army or PD capable of stopping the attacks that forts can, forts are a bargain! It is difficult or impossible for a typical standing army to fight off, say, 10 casting of Ghost Riders. A single fort, even the lowly 0-point watchtower, can ward off an infinite number of Ghost Riders. Even a PD of 125 cannot stop a rampaging ice devil: A single watch tower stops it cold. A fort can stop or delay enemies that no army you can muster at any reasonable, or even unreasonable, cost can.

The only other nation that has cheap access to Ghost Riders is C'Tis.

It's not all that difficult to get access to death-4 mages, Graeme. Once you have a D2 mage, he can forge a skullstaff and skullface, and voila, D4 mage. After all, if you have no other sources of death mages, what ELSE would you do with death gems? You need death mages to even use death gems, and nearly any nation can afford to get death gems, given that Dark Knowledge requires only a single rank of death magic, which most nations will surely roll on a random sooner or later.

[Taqwus]

Anybody that can summon Lamia Queens has a decent chance of getting a Death-3 or even Death-4 queen without expending vast amounts of death gems, too.

[GavinWheeler]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
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...

Soooo... a self-confessed Ermor fan is effectively saying "no need to gang up and squash Ermor before it gets rolling, just give me twenty turns or so then all come at me one by one"?

[Peter Ebbesen]

Ether Gate also provides you with a rather neat death/astral/random mage as part of the bundle - but SSSSD and 90 Astral gems is a pretty steep requirement to cast it.

[ April 11, 2004, 18:11: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Graeme Dice]

If you really feel it's such a problem, you can always choose to play on Rich world: That would give you your Dominions I balance back. Me, I think you're just spoiled by too much gold.

Let's take a look at the two Ermorian themes then. From Dom 1 to Dom 2 their amount of available design points dropped by 50. They also gained more survivability for their troops as banish was reduced in effectiveness. Every other nation, on the other hand, has half as much gold to use.

This from the guy who claimed to have several hundred mystics and astrologers camping out in his capitol?

A hundred is different from several hundred and that type of game is hardly a good candidate for making game balance decisions. Even so, that's all I had besides summoned troops, since the upkeep was approaching 1000 gold per turn, and even the world map doesn't give you much more than that in income.

If you don't HAVE any death mages, it's a little hard to do anything else with your death gems.

If you don't have any death mages, you're going to have a hard time creating one with death 2 or 3.

I've overrun PD 10 with Arouse Hunger, Imprint Souls, Hordes from Hell....PD is simply unable to cope. If you can't beat it with just one casting, use two or three.

So you just happen to have a few hundred nature gems sitting around to cast multiple calls of the wilds every turn? Imprint souls is 25 astral pearls, so it's a once every two or three turns deal. Arouse hunger has nowhere near the offensive potential of ghost riders. 10 ghouls isn't quite the same potency of a force as 33 longdead horsemen and a wraith lord.

A single fort, even the lowly 0-point watchtower, can ward off an infinite number of Ghost Riders.

So what, people are supposed to ignore their national troops and build pure summoned armies just so that they can have a low cost fortress?

A fort can stop or delay enemies that no army you can muster at any reasonable, or even unreasonable, cost can.

And that's one of the serious balance problems. Your conventional troops should never become useless, and should always remain the most important part of your army. As it stands right now, the game just degenerates into who can build the better SC faster.

It's not all that difficult to get access to death-4 mages, Graeme. Once you have a D2 mage, he can forge a skullstaff and skullface, and voila, D4 mage.

Most nations don't even have death 2 mages, so it's hardly a bargain to spend 60 gems to get a single mage capable of casting death 4 spells.

[archaeolept]

Originally posted by GavinWheeler:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Norfleet:
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...

Soooo... a self-confessed Ermor fan is effectively saying "no need to gang up and squash Ermor before it gets rolling, just give me twenty turns or so then all come at me one by one"?

---

yup. that is exactly what he always says

along w/ saying that the "paralyse bug" hurt him more than it hurt others (this while he was playing SG ermor and r'lyeh )