design LA Ermor (AI)

[Taqwus]

Sure, there's blood slave sites. Most common non-national is Damned Merchant, +1 per. One of the Academies, maybe the one of High Magic, also gives +1, I think. Mictlan obviously has higher-volume one in EA.

Doom Horrors, like the Eater of the Dead, might have some undesirable hardcoding -- the going-independent. Not sure it's good for the game if the AI is betrayed by its pretender running amok and slaughtering its worshippers. Not sure whether Call God would work, either. Weird scenario. Definitely don't use Kurgi; the AI won't handle the feebleminding (bad when the Ashen Empire is completely dependent on mages), and you need Kurgi around to punish people who cast globals during Astral Corruption.

A humanoid lich-type or a Harbinger with the Sceptre of Dark Regency is very thematic, 'tho. Even a Prince of Death with the Sceptre of Dark Regency, the Crown of Katafagus or Amon Hotep would be vicious; classic fear + awe, and Amon Hotep gives MR to boot making it a bit harder to kill.

A well-equipped Mandaha is less thematic unless the theme is 'Unholy Alliance' between demons and undead, but the automatic darkness would be vicious and it's unique to Mandahas, if memory serves. Add the Black Book of Secrets for seasoning. I'd suggest the Sceptre of Corruption except that's horror-marking.

Tartarians are more thematic, being undead; the male Tartarian Titan, provided that it has no afflictions (are the afflictions added by the spell, or an inherent property of the unit?). Obvious weapon is Tartarian Chains. Maybe Tome of the Lower Planes as well, very appropriate. Consider using a cave fortress...

Etimmu's an obvious candidate for usurper, but you can't prevent him from showing up as a hero without mods. You could make the hero insta-drown by giving Ermor an -underwater- province, but you'd also lose Ermor-the-Pretender's immortality, the rest of Ermor's heroes, et al.

Again, fill slots. The AI will happily use horror-marking items like Lightless Lanterns. OK on sage, bad on pretender.

[Nick_K]

LE Ermor is already quite powerful, so I wouldn't choose it as the number 1 choice for an upgrade. Unless other nations are also heavily upgraded an improved ermor would invariably lead to a 'human vs ermor' situation in every game. Ermor is also not as easy to mess up for the AI - having bad scales is not such a problem.
Also, having the Eater of the Dead as a pretender might be a bit iffy unless doing so would stop it becoming uncontrolled!
I don't think the arena is necessarily /that/ suicidal for an AI pretender if they are naturally powerful. I like the Prince of Death as a pretender, thematically. It's also physically powerful. If given some equipment at the start it should crush most arena opposition. The difficulty would be if multiple AI nations sent upgraded pretenders to the arena... but at least the battles would be fun to watch.

AI Ermor should have a high dominion (10?) and scales on the lines of turmoil 3/ sloth 3/ cold 3 (better for cold auras / luck 3 / magic 3 (or 1) / Death 3.
Obviously, the pretender needs death magic. Giving it very high levels to allow for global enchantments and so on is probably best. 10 perhaps?
The pretender absolutely needs to be awake.

Blood and nature don't seem very thematic for Ermor and blood is pretty useless for the Ashen Empire. all the others could easily and be added to beef the pretender up. Giving Ermor a pre-designed SC pretender with items and strong magic plus a strong dominion and luck/magic scales will probably spell doom for any other AIs near them though.

[Gandalf Parker]

I went with Ermor first because I wouldnt mind creatng a downloadable scenario where its a better idea for multiple human players to ally against the AI than to fight each other. It would be the only major challenge in the game.

Even worse by the way, I was going to add ally commands so that any other AIs you added to the game would automatically be allied with Ermor

[Nick_K]

Oh, well, no problem with Ai vs AI balance in that case then