Ermor balance?

[Heironeous]

Originally posted by Sindai:
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.

Good point. I was reluctant to do this because independent priests only have holy-2, which is fairly limited. If I'm going to spend my gold on priests, I'd really like to get holy-3 for Sermon of Courage. However, if I could go back I'd definitely bite the bullet and build an indie priest banishment squad to counter Ermor's rapid rise.

[Gandalf Parker]

Indie priests are a definate help. Plus the extra temples dont hurt you as far as boosting your dominion so that Ermor doesnt just kill off your population with those red candles all over the place.

There are also some very nice priest leaders in some of the merc Groups.

[Sindai]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
There are also some very nice priest leaders in some of the merc Groups.

Yeah, I remember one AE game where I had my first encounter with Orion and the Eternal Knights when Arco threw them at me. They just sort of strolled through my armies each turn until their contract ran out.

[Cohen]

Well ...
Really I believe Ermor Death Themes are very strong.

Death to supply his research has the Skull Mentors, only Const-4, and they cost 10 gems.
Ermor can take 4 scales at -3, allowing it to design a super pretender. And it can take Luck-3 and Magic-3 too.

Soul Gate is far better, since your troops could flee, yes, but they're ethereal.
Even if you've good magic against Ermor, you should commit mages to battle, risking to losing them, to fight infinite hordes of undeads ... while Ermor can freely keep up his research at full speed.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Cohen:
Death to supply his research has the Skull Mentors, only Const-4, and they cost 10 gems.
Ermor can take 4 scales at -3, allowing it to design a super pretender.

A pretender, no matter how super, is still only capable of performing one action at a time.

And it can take Luck-3 and Magic-3 too.

Yes, but taking Luck is a natural thing to do when taking Turmoil, and everyone takes magic-3....right? Given that the alternative to Turmoil/Luck is Order/Misfortune, and both of these options are of equivalent cost, the only real free points you're getting is a heat scale, sloth scale, and death scale. This is the exact same thing you can do with your precious Abysia.

Soul Gate is far better, since your troops could flee, yes, but they're ethereal.

Soul Gate Ermor lacks cavalry. There are no spectral cavalries that are the counterparts of AE's Longdead Horsemans.

Even if you've good magic against Ermor, you should commit mages to battle, risking to losing them, to fight infinite hordes of undeads ... while Ermor can freely keep up his research at full speed.

Without any mage support, Ermor's armies are pure chaff. It takes one mage to nuke 'em till they glow. Soul Gate Ermor, while ethereal, has ubiquitous 0 protection and is completely defenseless against magic-based attack, while having no longdead horsemans to rush mages. Thus, they lumber around at infantry-speed, and can be annihilated en-masse. Killing spree!

[Sheap]

Yes, but taking Luck is a natural thing to do when taking Turmoil, and everyone takes magic-3....right?

Not everyone

Ermor with Magic-3 pays 12 gems to get a Spectator who does 7 research. Ermor with drain-3 gets 1 research out of the same guy, until experience increases. That's pretty horrible. But when you equip your Spectator with an Owl Quill and a Skull Mentor, you're paying 27 gems to get 13 research in drain-3 (16 with lanterns instead of quills). In magic-3 you get 19 (22 w/lantern) research out of that same guy. So your research, in the long run, is about 2/3 as good in drain-3 as in magic-3, and this discounts experience bonuses which make the gap smaller. Of course, you'd have to get to Construction 4 first, and this is a lot of time your pretender spends parked in the library when he ought to be out killing people.

I'm not seriously suggesting taking drain-3. Just pointing out that because of Ermor's tendency (or at least ability) to use Skull Mentors, you're not hurting so much in Drain (or at least from less magic scale) as other nations.

Wth a living nation you more or less have to take luck if you are taking turmoil. With Ermor you can still afford misfortune, if you need more points, or at the least, luck-2 instead of luck-3. The only bad event that really hurts for Ermor is having a lab or temple kerplode. Everything else kills half of your 0 population. IMO, the primary problem with misfortune is that you DON'T get gem or gold positive events.

quote:
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Soul Gate is far better, since your troops could flee, yes, but they're ethereal.
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Soul Gate Ermor lacks cavalry. There are no spectral cavalries that are the counterparts of AE's Longdead Horsemans.

Except Longdead Horsemen, of course. You don't get them free, but you can summon them for 0.5 gems (or less) per horse. And then there's the Behemoth...

Soul Gate Ermor, while ethereal, has ubiquitous 0 protection and is completely defenseless against magic-based attack

The Ashen Ermor troops don't hold up all that well against magic based attack either. The only advantage they have is that there are (slightly) more of them, so it takes more castings to kill them all.

In the past I held that Soul Gate was weaker than Ashen Ermor, because it has such worse autosummons. And while the autosummons are worse, largely because you don't get free, sometimes sacred, cavalry, they aren't THAT MUCH worse. Blade Wind/Holy Pyre/Banishment/etc kills longdeads about as efficiently as spirits. But SG troops can defend castles, and have better MR. The free commanders, which have priest powers, are much better. And the national summons, while more expensive, are ethereal and have better stats. All in all I think it is about a wash.

[Agrajag]

I think AE is better than SG, and that's mainly for their priests.
SG priest can reanimate:
Dispossesed Spirits (havent tried those, sound pretty sucky)
Shadows (Weak! and only two a turn, even at high dominion)
Apparitions (Which require unburied corpses, so you can't mass 'em).

AE priests can reanimate Longdead Horsemen which are very powerful, at a rate of ~6 a day at a positive dominion, if you prophetize one you can even revive Wights (which are actually Lictors), which are very tough and come 2 a day.

And since for the same level of priest you need to pay more with SG and since AE has "Protection of The Sepulchre", I think AE is stronger.