How can I beat the Ermor?

Saber Cherry · #1 June 26th, 2006, 02:34 AM

Your enemies will never fatigue, so they will eventually beat your living soldiers, no matter how superior their stats... unless... you cast Relief!

For invading Ermor, bring Endless Bags of Wine. Herald Lances and Flambeaus are nice, just for their spells, not for combat. Troopwise, favor archers over melee, but bring enough melee units to protect everyone (heaviest armor + shield; attack and damage don't matter, only protection, defense, and morale). The best offensive mages are Fire (Holy Pyre, Falling Fires), Earth (Blade Wind), and Death (Dust to Dust, Wither Bones). The best support mages are Nature (Relief - essential!, and optionally Mass Protection), Air (Wind Guide - increases precision of mages and priests, not just archers!), and Water (Mass Quickness for 2X priest banishment).

Lastly, give your Prophet (or highest-holy priest) Boots of Quickness, Rune Smasher, Lucky Coin, Amulet of Penetration, Girdle of Might or Amulet of Resilience, and have him cast Banishment along with the other priests. As was said, you need lots of priests. Think ~40 priests with 50 archers and 50 heavy infantry, all backed by a few mages, to deal with armies of 1000 undead without significant losses. You need live soldiers and mages because the AI always mixes living (starving) units with its undead hordes. Ideally, your losses will only be from province defense (30+ at a single-province chokepoint, or ~20 otherwise) when you are the defender. Wars against Ermor require more PD than normal.

Note that if you know ahead of time your opponent is Ashen/Soulgate Ermor, taking a Water-9 pretender is a good idea, just for the extra banishment.

P.S. Don't forget Fanaticism / Sermon of Courage! If your infantry run away, you lose 2000 gold of priests.

Fate · #2 June 26th, 2006, 09:13 PM

A neat trick, especially against the AI, is to send some scouts through there territory and attack 0 PD provinces. If there is no leader, they will all fall apart.

Folket · #3 June 29th, 2006, 06:18 AM

Intresting, but from what I have seen the AI builds pd everywhere.

Archonsod · #4 June 29th, 2006, 08:23 AM

Assassins can work wonders. Eliminate the characters holding the armies together before you attack and Eremor becomes a non-issue, as long as you can keep his domain away.

Agrajag · #5 June 29th, 2006, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Archonsod said:
Assassins can work wonders. Eliminate the characters holding the armies together before you attack and Eremor becomes a non-issue, as long as you can keep his domain away.

Which is again an issue if he has PD...
Also, some of Ermor's commanders can be quite tough.

Valandil · #6 June 29th, 2006, 03:06 PM

True enough. Assassinating a wraith consul would be hard, and a dusk elder almost impossible.

How good is purgatory?
Astral is nice for solar rays/brilliance if you can get it.
The forbidden light isn't bad, but there is only one, and it's const. 8.
What about inner sun? or phoenix pyre/reinvig?

opnions?

Cainehill · #7 June 29th, 2006, 11:54 PM

Forbidden light is also rough because it tends to get whomever is wielding it killed, even pretenders. Big honking huge horrors show up - I've even lost pretenders to 'em.

Archonsod · #8 June 30th, 2006, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Agrajag said:
Which is again an issue if he has PD...

You'll eventually fight his main commanders though, once they're gone the PD commanders are fairly easy to deal with.

Quote:

Also, some of Ermor's commanders can be quite tough.

Never said it would be easy

Doesn't have to be one on one though, simply having a good combat character who can somehow engage the Ermor commanders at the start of battle can also work. A good bow in the hands of a high precision commander or someone equipped with boots of flying and some of the anti-undead weapons should do it (especially against the AI). Back them up with some bowmen to help finish off the rest of the army as it crumbles and you could probably start taking provinces without taking any casualties.