Ermor?

[The Panther]

This whole discussion overlooks a few big problems with Ermor:

1. Ermor can pile out troops in the early game and can easily overrun most any nation by turn 20. You simply can't have enough priests nor high enough research early on to counter this. Ermor can easily rush better than any other nation.
2. Fighting Ermor nearly ALWAYS requires multiple nations to join in. This seems to me to be an obvious flaw in the game design if one specific nation normally can't be beat in a 1-on-1.
3. If you want to have at least a fighting chance to beat Ermor in a 1-on-1 in the first 20 turns, you MUST have a good anti-undead nation such as Pythium or Marignon. But who wants to only play those races just because Ermor is present?
4. If you start near Ermor, you have basically no chance to win the game. Even if you put together a coalition right off the bat and kill Ermor early, you will take too many troop losses doing so, plus you will have provinces with no population and no resources. So you will easily lose to the guy on the other side from you who has a normal nation with normal troops and lots of mages.
5. Soul Gate troops simply CANNOT be banished by level 2 priests. Their MR is too high. Even Level 4 priests have trouble banishing Soul Gate troops. Low priestly nations like Man and Ulm have almost no chance against SG Ermor.
6. Don't forget supply. If you cannot get a nature mage, plus nature gems, plus CONSTRUCTION 4 (!) you can't invade Ermor. Your starving, 5 morale, diseased troops will never win any battle in enemy territory.

Your best bet when an Ermor death theme is in the game? Start as far away as possible so you have time for the necessary research and artifacts needed to kill the undead!