Does Soul Gate need gold?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Merry Jolkar:
Can they get away with -3 disorder -3 sloth -3 cold?

Neither of the two population killing themes of Ermor should really _ever_ take anything other than turmoil 3 and sloth 3. You wil get more income for a few turns without these scales, but your population will be dead in a matter of single digit turns anyways. Thus, it will almost always be worth it to take these scales to their extreme. Fire magic is also much more damaging than cold magic to the undead, and with ashen ermor you have many units with cold radiation, so a cold scale benefits you here as well. You do take another income hit from this, but again that doesn't matter much when you don't plan to support a living army. You should also take death 3, as your population will die anyways.

I would think that the standard scales for both Ermorian themes would be something like:
Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3, Death 3.

As for magic, I happen to like a +2 or +3 magic scale for Ermor, as it greatly helps your research. I also like the luck scale, as gem and income events are always welcome for a gold-starved Ermor player.