Priests and LA Ermor

[VedalkenBear]

Any money this degenerates into another flame thread. Can we just all ignore him?

And Lord_Bob? If a 15:1 kill ratio is not enough for you, I'd suggest finding another game. As you say, an Ermorian Castle can spawn about 25 undead a turn. Surely you can get 1.667 guards for your priests in the same time period? It's not like you are losing the priests, no?

If you have a high dominion, there's also Purgatory. Wrath of God can also work. Yes, they are Globals. If you can't guard them, don't use them.

>I made sure every battle I fought I had darkness, rigor >mortis and protection of the sepulchre up. This meant I >would often destroy far more of the enemy or equal >numbers, which of course means Ermor wins given its huge >freespawn every turn.

Responding to a different poster, you were able to put these up, every battle, with every army? This sounds a little hard to believe. That's also two level 6 battle enchantments that cost a total of 5 death gems every battle. This does not sound like a 'pre-level 7' issue that needs to be responded to, which is what Lord_Bob specified.

[Lord_Bob]

Any money this degenerates into another flame thread. Can we just all ignore him?

And Lord_Bob? If a 15:1 kill ratio is not enough for you, I'd suggest finding another game. As you say, an Ermorian Castle can spawn about 25 undead a turn. Surely you can get 1.667 guards for your priests in the same time period? It's not like you are losing the priests, no?

If you have a high dominion, there's also Purgatory. Wrath of God can also work. Yes, they are Globals. If you can't guard them, don't use them.

>I made sure every battle I fought I had darkness, rigor >mortis and protection of the sepulchre up. This meant I >would often destroy far more of the enemy or equal >numbers, which of course means Ermor wins given its huge >freespawn every turn.

Responding to a different poster, you were able to put these up, every battle, with every army? This sounds a little hard to believe. That's also two level 6 battle enchantments that cost a total of 5 death gems every battle. This does not sound like a 'pre-level 7' issue that needs to be responded to, which is what Lord_Bob specified.

That is without buffs or tactics of any kind. Ermor destroyed Marignon, played by a new player, with an army of over 1200 undead on turn 25-26. 1,200. For me to keep this ratio(ignoring the fact that Ermor IS going to buff his army) I would need 40 priests. FORTY. With buffs, SIXTY OR MORE.

I'm curious, how many priests do you have on turn 25?

20? 60? 100?

The point is, telling new players to use "Indy Priest" is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY WRONG.

[HotNifeThruButr]

The reason you're not liking the answers you're getting, Lord Bob, is that you've presented these people with an unsolvable problem.

You say 1200 undead on turn 25. Well has the Ermor player become a powerhouse in your game or is he fairly modest? Have you become a powerhouse or are you fairly modest or not doing well at all? What magics have you unlocked? How much gems are you getting? Hell, even what nation are you playing?

Looking at your third post, your army has apparently changed from just posting on the forum. A Crystal Shield doesn't cost 25 pearls when you've got earth mages searching sites for earth gems. And you certainly do have earth mages if your priests are switching to Blade Wind, an E3 spell.

Neither have you specified what buffs the Ermor army is getting or that you anticipate they will get, and even the composition of their 1200 undead seem to get distorted as they have shields in one moment and not the next.

It's just plain unfair for you to switch the situation every time they suggest a resolution by countering the Ermor's spells and assets and to make your empire weaker whenever they suggest a resolution by overpowering.

[AdmiralZhao]

As the neighbor of both Ermor and Marignon, I would have to say that this game is hardly a representative case. For one, Marignon has been bottled up on an island since about turn 10, and only had about 12 provinces in total. Also, I think Marignon is a bit new to MP, since as far as I can tell he never built PD. Not to downplay BigAndScary's victory, but this is really more of a case of a big power crushing a small power, rather than Ermor being unbeatable.

To derail a bit: in my test games with Ermor, it has always seemed like they have a real difficulty keeping up in research. Their national mages all require death gems, which are already in huge demand. And even after the mages are created, there is still a lot of competition for their time, as the mages are also needed for site searching, leading armies, summoning more mages, and casting battle field enchantments. How do you manage to stay competitive in research?

[K]

AdmiralZhao said:
To derail a bit: in my test games with Ermor, it has always seemed like they have a real difficulty keeping up in research. Their national mages all require death gems, which are already in huge demand. And even after the mages are created, there is still a lot of competition for their time, as the mages are also needed for site searching, leading armies, summoning more mages, and casting battle field enchantments. How do you manage to stay competitive in research?

Skull Mentors. A Dusk Elder is 25 gems for 6 reseach, and a Mentor is 10 for 9. For the price of two Elders (12 research), you can have 45 points instead (or 63 with a Hammer involved).

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vtb,

How did you get the Holy that high? By my count I'm one short.

[vfb]

K, The First King is H5 to start. (woot! )

Prophetize him, and he's H6. Sword of Injustice, H7. Crystal Shield, H8 in battle. Then Ekishnugal casts Hell Power, and he's H10.

Lord_Bob, I didn't know the discussion was about Marignon and Ermor. Marginon's H3 Inquisitors should really lay some smack down on the undead hordes. And making one H5 by prophetising & Crystal Shield is a good plan. Trade someone for a few Crystal Matrix too (also only Const4), or take a god with earth and astral to make them yourself, and 4 cheap S1 Chartmakers turn your H3s into H5s and your H5 Prophet into H7.

Banishment at H3 is:
Area 8, Damage 11AN, Penetration+1

Banishment at H5 is:
Area 12, Damage 17AN, Penetration+2

Banishment at H7 is:
Area 16, Damage 23AN, Penetration+3

If you don't like that idea, there's also Inner Sun: 1 in 4 Goetic Masters can cast this. It's Alt3, 1 gem, cast it any time before the battle. Script 5 spells then attack closest, and when he gets poked, he explodes for 15AN damage (MR) with area 35. You want to give the undead time to get rid of their javelins so they are nice and close when you set them up the bomb. You could even try a Blink as your final spell, but YMMV with that. Kind of expensive though. Since you didn't like trading 190 gold for 300 undead, you probably won't like this. If you have indies like a 90 gold Magus it would be better.

Or, Conj-6 will get Marignon some Harbringers. Its ranged attack is Area 5, 15AP damage versus undead, 15 shots.

[Lord_Bob]

The reason you're not liking the answers you're getting, Lord Bob, is that you've presented these people with an unsolvable problem.

You say 1200 undead on turn 25. Well has the Ermor player become a powerhouse in your game or is he fairly modest? Have you become a powerhouse or are you fairly modest or not doing well at all? What magics have you unlocked? How much gems are you getting? Hell, even what nation are you playing?

Looking at your third post, your army has apparently changed from just posting on the forum. A Crystal Shield doesn't cost 25 pearls when you've got earth mages searching sites for earth gems. And you certainly do have earth mages if your priests are switching to Blade Wind, an E3 spell.

Neither have you specified what buffs the Ermor army is getting or that you anticipate they will get, and even the composition of their 1200 undead seem to get distorted as they have shields in one moment and not the next.

It's just plain unfair for you to switch the situation every time they suggest a resolution by countering the Ermor's spells and assets and to make your empire weaker whenever they suggest a resolution by overpowering.

I'm talking about having an Archbishop of Eldergate spam the spells available at Turn 1. They can be summoned, but are expensive. Any Ermor player should have an H3 or H4 priest present at every major battle unless they have a very good reason. That is the only "undead buff" I am talking about. So that's it for Ermor "buffs".

I would prefer that we talk about Castle Undead, as was stated in the beginning.

I deliberately left things wide open on the other side, but did want to exclude races that have H3 priest, because, obviously, that is race specific. I have also admitted that Blood Priests can power communion themselves to mighty levels. However, this doesn't cover all races, at all.

The fact that I have stated certain common answers don't work is true. That is because they don't work.

I looked it up, and a crystal shield costs 15 Astral Pearls and 10 Earth gems, which is still really, really expensive. Even with a Hammer, it is expensive. Good for a Prophet, not so helpfull for H1 priests.

40 H1 priests cost 2000 gold, and must be built from at least 4-5 temples, costing 1600-2000 gold. That is a total investment of 3600-4000 gold. For turn 25 that is not "moderate resources". This is a huge investment that is COMPLETELY USELESS against non-Blood, non-Ermor nations. It is, in fact, more effective against Blood nations than Ermor . Sadly.

Archers are useless against Castle Undead. Every one of them has a Tower Shield.(Some low chance longdead may have shields)

Solar Rays doesn't work either.

Earthquake bizarely doesn't work. I thought it would work to.... in the test, 4 of them will kill about 1/3 of a Castle Undead force.

Some people have suggested solutions that work.
-Telestic Animation is cheap, and could probably be "spammed" into a province that is going to be attacked
-Communion and Sabbath for priest(which is not that simple)
-Crystal Shield for prophet
-Cleansing Water(Evo-6)
-Various Level-7 spells that work against all national armies
-Wither Bones(Thau-6)
-Herald Lance(very poor solution)
-Various Marignon solutions, which wasn't what I was looking for, I am not playing Marignon(I am looking for "normal race" answers)
-Power of the Spheres, if you can prevent your mages from casting other spells.
-Penetration items, Spell Focus, and Eyes of the Void
-presumably SCs

I do read peoples answers.

[VedalkenBear]

Point by point.

Yes, the Archbishop is expensive. It takes a skilled player to juggle the death gem income that Ermor starts with. The best time to take out Ermor is, ironically, early.

We can restrict ourselves to talking about 'castle undead', but that is not fair, as your opponent will not be fielding only those troops (unless he micromanages to an alarming degree). Someone mentioned before that even in MP games, Ermor's army is only about 40% 'castle trops'. Therefore, I see no reason to restrict ourselves to 'castle undead'.

Let's talk about the nations in LE, and their Priest availability. The only nations that do not have L2 priests recruitable are, IIRC, Man, Tien Chi (maybe), Caelum, and maybe Patala (Oh, I think Pangaea might be in here too). (I'm sure people will point out if I'm wrong, and where.) Therefore, I am not sure why you focus on the H1 issues.

If 'common answers' don't work, then you really should specify under what conditions they don't work. If by that you mean 'by turn 25 against a 1200-piece undead horde', then you should specify that. The better you define your problem, the better answers we can give.

Yes, 40 H1 Priests are completely useless against nations unless:

1) They use Undead.
2) They want their Dominion in your lands (Temp ones mostly)
3) They use weak demons.
4) They are not mages (which I assume is the case).

and:

5) You don't need to build temples (i.e., you already have enough priests for that).

So, you see, your statement is quite hyperbolic. And I would like to point out again that the vast majority of LE nations (by my reckoning) have access to Holy-2 Priests. Yes, some of them are capital-only. On turn 25, this is not much of an issue.

And Archers are not as useful as they normally are against 'castle undead', true. However, we have the countervailing point that Ermorian armies (especially by turn 25) either are huge OR they have solely 'castle undead'. Not both.

Finally, I would ask again for what nation you are playing (or were playing). Given the diverse nature of the game, what can work for one nation (buying national Holy-3 Priests) won't work for another. So instead of us trying to shoot blind finding answers that might work for your nation, it would be much easier if you tell us your nation so that we can tailor the answers to the specific situation.

[Torin]

probably he wants to keep it secret.

if your enemy is showing only castle undead he is fielding less than half undeads as he could be.
By turn 25 any nation can have an army to meet them. Not only 40 priests but the priests + army + archery + magic.
The point is to use everything you can.

True you can loose, but if you can hold on you can outtech him. I think is hard to manage a good research with LA ermor. At least harder than the living nations.

If you hold, a strong thug with a charcoal shield is useful too.

in fact it´s easier to deal with LA ermor than is with lanka or the other rushers.

[Lord_Bob]

And this is exactly what I'm talking about. Right here.

Yes, 40 H1 Priests are completely useless against nations unless:

1) They use Undead.
2) They want their Dominion in your lands (Temp ones mostly)
3) They use weak demons.
4) They are not mages (which I assume is the case).

and:

5) You don't need to build temples (i.e., you already have enough priests for that).

5) You don't need to build temples (i.e., you already have enough priests for that).

And how exactly do you build those 40 H1 independent priests without temples?

I gave a construction time of 8-10 turns for 4-5 temples. Eight to ten turns is an extremely long amount of time, and if anything my number is less than the actually required temple numbers.

2) They want their Dominion in your lands (Temp ones mostly)

While real, this is an extremely limited case, as I'm sure you know.

4) They are not mages (which I assume is the case).

I said they cost 50 gold. No Mage-Priest in the game, even Mictlan Blood Priests, cost 50 gold and can be built only from a temple. So I'm glad you deliberately misunderstood me so you could "assume" another point to your answer.

1) They use Undead.
3) They use weak demons.

As I said.

So we have willfull misinterpretation, repetition of points I already mentioned, and apparently failure to understand that priests require a temple to be built.

So, you see, your statement is quite hyperbolic. And I would like to point out again that the vast majority of LE nations (by my reckoning) have access to Holy-2 Priests. Yes, some of them are capital-only. On turn 25, this is not much of an issue.

I doubt there is a player in the game who would like to sacrifice his capital-only Late Era mages in order to build an H2 priest. You know this.

Castle H2 priests, though rarer, only require a castle and a temple to build. That is 1200 gold per build site. We could easily hit 3600 gold just from the production centers required, much less the priests. For the races that have it, it works.... assuming H2 priests, boosted with items, are that great.