Race Designs & Strategies

[Vorkosigan]

I actually really like Watchtowers and Mausoleums, but I'm not sure how good they are in multiplayer, so I went for the Wizards Tower instead. Anything that takes > 2 turns to build or costs > 300 gold is too expensive and too slow for my taste.

My Abysia design uses Watchtowers, but I was reluctant to post it because it is a bit odd.

ABYSIA (base theme)

Pretender: Ghost King (yes, I'm insane)
Magic: 3A, 3W, 3E, 3D, 3B
Scales: 3 Order, 3 Production, 3 Heat, 3 Death, 2 Misfortune, 3 Magic
Dominion: 7
Castle: Watchtower
Pts left: 1

Prophet: Anathemant Salamander
Key Troops: Abysian Infantry (w/morningstar), Warlock Apprentice, Demonbred
Key Spells: Bind Devil

Research: Alt-3, Blood-3 (Bind Devil), Constr-4 (Sanguine Dowsing Rod), Blood-5 (Ice Devil), Constr-6 (equipment for IDs)

Notes: Build Warlock Apprentices as fast as possible, send 3 per province with pop 6k-8k to bloodhunt, set taxes to 0. At Blood 3 build Demonbred, have them cast Bind Devils. at Blood 5 have Ghost King summon Ice Devils. Alternatively, get Constr-2, build a Dwarven Hammer then build Soul Contracts. Constr-6 gives you Blood Thorns, which are essential for your IDs.

[Kel]

Vorkosigan said:
I actually really like Watchtowers and Mausoleums, but I'm not sure how good they are in multiplayer, so I went for the Wizards Tower instead.

Watchtowers are probably one of the most used fortifications in my MP experience.

My Abysia design uses Watchtowers, but I was reluctant to post it because it is a bit odd.

ABYSIA (base theme)

Pretender: Ghost King (yes, I'm insane)

GK is *very* common these days, even with Abysia. I use either GK or VQ with the occasional PoD w/Aby.

- Kel

[Vorkosigan]

ERMOR (Ashen Empire)

Pretender: Ghost King
Magic: 2F, 3A, 2W, 3E, 7S, 6D, 2N
Scales: 3 Turmoil, 3 Sloth, 3 Cold, 3 Death, 3 Luck, 3 Drain
Dominion: 10
Castle: Ermorian Citadel
Pts left: 0

Prophet: Censor
Key Troops: Dusk Elder, Archbishop
Key Spells: Burden of Time, Foul Air

Research: Alt-3, Constr-4 (skull mentor), Thaum-5 (Burden of Time), Thaum-6 (Foul Air), Ench-2 (Revive King), Ench-3 (Raise Skeleton, Raise Dead), Ench-4 (Behemoth)

Notes: On turn 2 summon a Dusk Elder. Have the DE summon Archbishops as fast as possible. Have the Archbishops set to Summon Longdead Horsemen. After Alt-3, send the GK to take provinces and site search. Have your prophet build temples in the first few provinces he takes (money permitting). Temples increase the number of undead you get.

The AI is not capable of dealing with Ermor, so even vs Impossible opponents it's a cakewalk. But very very fun!

[Boron]

Your ermorsetup is SP only imo .
Taking drain with ermor is risky .
Archbishops for reanimating longdead horses are too expensive .

Dominion 10 is imo not necessary 8 is enough .
My research goals with ermor are :
1. conjuration 6
2. construction 6
then whatever i need .

Conjuration 6 gives you spectres , the best researchers for ermor + they give you lots of random magic paths so they can do a lot of forging as well .
Construction 6 gives you water bracelets to start clamhoarding with your W spectres you got meanwhile .

If you cast burden of time / foul air in a mp game you will have the whole map quickly against you . And those 2 spells don't have a huge effect in 2 or 3 turns and they will get dispelled very soon so if they Last longer then 3 turns i would extremely wonder .

My typical ermor ghostking is about like this :

Castle : ermorian castle
Dominion : 7
Sloth 3 , death 3 , turmoil 3 , cold 3 , magic 3 , luck 3

3F 3A 3W 4E 4S 4D 4N as paths .

This way i find like 90% sites , need only 1 booster to cast GoH , Lichcraft , Call wraithlord , forge of the ancients .
In lategame with a ring of sorcery , ring of wizardy and other boosters he can do almost any spell .
For wishing you need only to do 1-2 empowerments as well ( 1 if someone traded you a robe of the magi ) .

[Vorkosigan]

Fascinating. I have never tried the Spectres; I'll have to give them a shot. I like the drain for the improved magic resistance, but yeah in multiplayer it would be a dumb idea. Wouldn't 4S be risky, or is Magic Duel overrated?

To be honest, I wouldn't dare take Ermor in multiplayer, simply because I'd be willing to bet Ermor is target #1 in most games without some unbelievable diplomacy.

[Boron]

Well you don't bring your ghostking to fights normally .
He is "just" a sitesearcher , forger , caster + wisher .
So almost no risk of magic duel .

If ermor is target #1 or not depends a lot on the situation + the players you play with .
Some players think that ermor should be taken out quick while others think this is unrewarding and wait .

If you have lucky placement in a corner of the map then your chances are excellent but even otherwise you are no easy prey for most nations .
I play them normally quite defensive + research orientated . Your troops are imo cool because you get them in such huge numbers from midgame on that they really matter . Sure the enemy has lots of means to kill them , flames from the sky , massed priests , wither bones , holy pyre , wrathful skies etc. etc. etc. .
But they are excellent against SCs + they are good for raiding + pillaging .
So in midgame you can easily do some 200-500 undead pillage armies which do scorched earth to the enemy .
By the enemy main armies they get easily mowed down but smaller armies they easily kill . You just conquer a province , pillage 1 turn and advance to the next .

If you start with e.g. 10 200 undead raiding armies the enemy will kill 1 or 2 every turn but until he stopped all of your raiding armies he needs at least some turns + you have destroyed a few provinces + kept him busy .
The other advantage is that you force by doing this your enemy to do lots of anti undead armies which you can then easily defeat with not undead SCs which are normally not often used but in these special circumstances kinda good like firbolgs , harbingers , arch angels etc. in midgame and in lategame you can do everything anyways cause you clamhoarded .

Your normal troops still matter in lategame because you will get 500-1000 maybe even more / turn . You get them for free while 1000 undead still require some effort for the enemy to kill them .

In lategame you have then the advantage of still being able to take the lighter defended enemy provinces with your freespawns only + every province you get gets pillaged and you caste + temple it immediately .
This way your enemy has even in lategame 2 huge mali :
- He has few income cause it is hard to defend more then 5 provinces constantly against ermor and only a 2 turn Lasting loss leaves a totally pillaged province .
This way he has to use some of his gems to produce money or big parts of his national mages will desert .
- By templing + castling every province your enemy gets probably dominionproblems + needs to preach . With already reduced income this gets even more severe .

Your screens of AE freespawns have the huge advantage that they are all LL . So the standard SC with lifeleech has extremely bad chances to win against them . So the enemy has to build special anti ermor SCs but your knights of the unholy sepulrche have when massed even chances of defeating such SCs .

Most of the stuff i said is possible by your freespawns only .
Tartarians , Wraith lords , Demi liches etc. are some of the best commanders in the game as well and most of them are imo also quite cheap .
Once you survive to midgame you are normally strong enough to give even 2 or 3 invaders at least a very long + tough fight .

[Edi]

I've found some rather nicely working designs (though not MP tested) that I like.

For Abysia, I like a Scorpion King with F4/E6, Scales Order 2, Prod 3, Magic 2 (as a rule, I do not like Misfortune) and of course the Heat 3, and using the standard castle. The E6 is especially nice because the most combat oriented mages (especially the ones used early on, the demonbred and the anathemants) are sacred, so they get an extra 3 reinvigoration. Dominion value is somewhere around 6 for this chassis, and it works surprisingly well. Researching Evo 3 (or at least Evo 2) quickly makes the SK a serious artillery support that can and will eat almost anything that gets through the infantry for lunch, and later can be used by himself to wipe out indeps. Especially good with Zen's pretender mod, because he gains a body slot for armor and mounted status so armor encumbrance is ignored for melee purposes (not spellcasting, though). I've been using this particular one for my first MP, and it was very good until an indie heavy cavalry gave him the mute affliction and made him only so much decoration for teh ~35 turns it took a faerie queen to heal him (I swear, took at least 25 turns before the affliction disappeared while my mindhunt feebleminded warlocks were back in action in 2 to 5 turns...)

For Vanheim, resources tend not to be an issue, but you still need some of them, so I use the basic fortress (30 admin). Haven't tried much yet, but the Allfather gives a solid pretender, and a blue dragon can give a nice water bless for the van and valkyries.

For Arco, switch the wizard tower to the 30 admin fort, give the Nataraja E3 (Summon Earth Power + Invulnerability rocks, though you can do that with E2 too). Magic 1 is enough, 3 points of that scale is too expensive a price tag for the benefits considering what else you can do with 80 points. Dominion score is around 5 or 6, don't really remember.

Edi

[Vorkosigan]

I can imagine that by midgame Ermor is darn hard to beat. Surviving to then is the trick. I found that versus 12 impossible AI opponents, I cannot wait for the freespawns. Archbishops summoning horsemen seem to work really well. Especially once you have a dozen Archbishops or more. Without those horsemen I just wouldn't have enough troops to expand with my usual berserker enthusiasm.

Do you limit your expansion and focus on research? I admit that's an approach I have ignored to date.

[Vorkosigan]

Hey Edi brings up an interesting point: for multiplayer, what tends to be the most popular mods? I haven't played with mods so far, but it sounds like there are some pretty interesting ones. I like the sound of the mod that gives reinvigoration to the pretenders.

[Boron]

Vorkosigan said:
Do you limit your expansion and focus on research? I admit that's an approach I have ignored to date.

Exactly i chose research over expansion .

In SP even impossible AIs have some trouble with your dominion + starving .
In SP even unequipped wraithlords beat huge amounts of AI troops + this is costless as long as fighting in own dominion .

The longdead horsemen are too fragile to be really good in MP imo . 1 archbishop costs even more then 1 duskelder though . Basically you could expand with your mages just spamming skeletons + a few undeads ( 30-50 ) .
This way you don't need your arch bishops .
I summon about 5 alcolytes during an ermor game for temple building and zero arch bishops .
I try to search my provinces as quick as possible to maximize gemincome and start clamhoarding as soon as possible too .