Ermor balance?

[Boron]

that is only because the ai can't cope with ermor .

since 2.12 ermor may not use the vq anymore so it has lost even more of its danger .

in a 8-10 player mp game ermor is nasty but it will normally be far behind in research or only small .
his freespawns can get killed quite quick even with banishment .

have you ever seen wither bones , dust to dust , holy pyre and the other undead killer spells in action in battle ?

he will attack with a legion of e.g. 1000 freespawns your 50-100 troops but when you can cast one of the above mentioned spells + have some priests your odds to win the battle are good .

if you are not his direct neighbor at start ermor is normally not the biggest problem .
ermor is still a good nation , perhaps even top 5 but not too strong .

you will soon notice this yourself too
have you scoregraphs on ?
leading in troop sizes for ae ermor is normal but normally he should be behind in research and only about nb 3 in gem income but normally not number 1 .

in your game your friend was just lucky because the ai can't cope with ermor .
i think though that perhaps your friend has summoned lots of priests for more reanimations and is far behind in research and not top in gem income .

ermor is nasty but has its issues . research and almost limited to death are the 2 biggest .

[Heironeous]

I can definitely see how things might balance out later in the game, but it's the early going I'm more concerned about. If I had started next to him he could've overrun me fairly easily (like he did to Man). Masses of priests aren't really an option in the beginning when you have only 1 castle. He also had the luxury of being able to invade many provinces at once, which puts a lot of pressure on the defender.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Heironeous:
I can definitely see how things might balance out later in the game, but it's the early going I'm more concerned about. If I had started next to him he could've overrun me fairly easily (like he did to Man). Masses of priests aren't really an option in the beginning when you have only 1 castle. He also had the luxury of being able to invade many provinces at once, which puts a lot of pressure on the defender.

in a 2 player game ermor is nasty .

but in a mp game with 8-10 humans WITHOUT any ais he can't do that . he may kill 1-2 others through a early rush still but that comes with the cost of almost zero research .
and the others will forge an alliance against him because they see him as a threat.

furthermore if ermor e.g. starts with marignon as neighbors he has nothing to laugh.

ermor is evil but normally not that a concern lategame .

at which map do you play with your friend ?
in a 2 humans and some ai only game ermor has advantages but not in any other situation.
if you play a large enough map his advantages aren't that good anymore too.

ermor is not the best searcher + clamhorder .
+ it almost can't bloodhunt .

so even with ais and only you and your friend playing on a bigger map he has still problems lategame if you know what to do .

[Agrajag]

Originally posted by Boron:
that is only because the ai can't cope with ermor .

since 2.12 ermor may not use the vq anymore so it has lost even more of its danger .

in a 8-10 player mp game ermor is nasty but it will normally be far behind in research or only small .
his freespawns can get killed quite quick even with banishment .

have you ever seen wither bones , dust to dust , holy pyre and the other undead killer spells in action in battle ?

he will attack with a legion of e.g. 1000 freespawns your 50-100 troops but when you can cast one of the above mentioned spells + have some priests your odds to win the battle are good .

if you are not his direct neighbor at start ermor is normally not the biggest problem .
ermor is still a good nation , perhaps even top 5 but not too strong .

you will soon notice this yourself too
have you scoregraphs on ?
leading in troop sizes for ae ermor is normal but normally he should be behind in research and only about nb 3 in gem income but normally not number 1 .

in your game your friend was just lucky because the ai can't cope with ermor .
i think though that perhaps your friend has summoned lots of priests for more reanimations and is far behind in research and not top in gem income .

ermor is nasty but has its issues . research and almost limited to death are the 2 biggest .

Why should Ermor be behind in research?
It starts with the possibility to summon a dusk elder every second turn for an average of 4 new RPs per turn, not too bad (yet not very good), with a bit of research and site-searching they can easily crank that up to even more through cheap summons with small research values strengthened by Magic+3.
Anyway, while I agree AE Ermor is pretty strong, the Anti-Undead spells are just too much for them.
I remember a game I had with the VS the AI, I had to conquer the Last enemy province on the entire map (which happened to be the AI's captiol).
I had ~500 units, he had ~40 IIRC.
One "Grind Bones" and I lost...
I never completed that game (And ended up deleting it after the post patch savegame cleanup I made).
One thing though, if R`lyeh and AE Ermor are forming enemy camps in a MP game, be sure to take Ermor's side ^^

[Sindai]

Originally posted by Heironeous:
Masses of priests aren't really an option in the beginning when you have only 1 castle.

Aha! Who said you need castles to recruit priests? National priests, yes, but the basic indie priests are available in almost every province, and since they're so resource-cheap you don't need a castle.

EDIT: Which is not to say Ermor can't be tough to beat. In your game setup (two humans with several AIs) I can see how AE or SG Ermor would be very, very nasty. Ermor will simply have a much easier time overrunning the AIs, who aren't smart enough to ally against him or adopt anti-undead tactics.

If he absolutely has to play AE and you don't want to join larger MP games, try a two-player game on that small map with you as, say, Marignon.

[ August 04, 2004, 19:23: Message edited by: Sindai ]

[Vynd]

Originally posted by Agrajag:
Why should Ermor be behind in research?
It starts with the possibility to summon a dusk elder every second turn for an average of 4 new RPs per turn, not too bad (yet not very good), with a bit of research and site-searching they can easily crank that up to even more through cheap summons with small research values strengthened by Magic+3.

AE Ermor is definitely a bad nation for research. Any nation that has to cast summoning spells just to get a researcher is not very good. And AE Ermor's mages, while powerful in Death, have little or no magic outside of that and so even once you have some they're mediocre researchers at best.

I don't think there is another nation in the game that couldn't out-research Undead Ermor if they made research any sort of priority. Well, except for Undead Pangaea, maybe, but that's about it.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Vynd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Agrajag:
Why should Ermor be behind in research?
It starts with the possibility to summon a dusk elder every second turn for an average of 4 new RPs per turn, not too bad (yet not very good), with a bit of research and site-searching they can easily crank that up to even more through cheap summons with small research values strengthened by Magic+3.

AE Ermor is definitely a bad nation for research. Any nation that has to cast summoning spells just to get a researcher is not very good. And AE Ermor's mages, while powerful in Death, have little or no magic outside of that and so even once you have some they're mediocre researchers at best.

I don't think there is another nation in the game that couldn't out-research Undead Ermor if they made research any sort of priority. Well, except for Undead Pangaea, maybe, but that's about it.

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yeah shortly after pan cw ermor is probably the worst researcher .
and you need deathgems for your researchers which you need for forging + summoning + bane/wraithlords etc. + ghost riders .......