LA Ermor's Dominion Change in 3.15...

[Endoperez]

Ermor has always been a special case other AI's don't know how to deal against. At least we know have access to two eras in which there are no dominion-killing nation that spawn thousands of troops out of thin air.

[mathusalem]

I have tried a solo game with the "new" dominion.
Really difficult without some high gold events : can't by any castle after the 20 first turns

[Xavier]

then you're doing something wrong...even with no gold events I can have a castle and a temple on turn 7, and have enough cash to start another castle on the following turn.

try increasing your taxes to 200% in every province, and make sure you take farms and other high-income provinces near your capital ASAP, to maximize income before your dominion wipes out the population.

also, with the increased dom kill I think you're pretty much forced into taking luck 3 (as though you didn't have the points to spare) for the gold events.

[hnchrist3]

Luck +3 is mandatory. It will be your greatest generator of gold (particularly after you cast Utterdark), {you WILL won't you?} as the gold you acquire during "events" will be real and not modified by Utterdark's 90% reduction.

In a recent game I had a double, "3000 gold and a magic item" in one turn! (Under Utterdark!)

I used to go luck -3 for the magics, but as long as you have a Pretender with something in *all* paths, there is no real advantage to the extra points. (The reason is to avoid the 50 gem 'penalty' for getting into a magic path.)

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With the change, you should go +200% taxation in all provinces, to extract the maximum income, and to ruin it for anyone else who decides to conquer it.
Taking a province is one thing... Keeping it is another.
Bwaaaaaaa--ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
(Excuse me: Ha!)
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In the end, Ermor is a freak. Worse yet, everyone hates it (just as everyone, including Ermor, hates R'Lyeh). Against R'Lyeh your troops/commanders go insane in its dominion. Against Ermor, (their) troops/commanders starve. The difference is that starvation is curable, and insanity is not.

Viva la mort!

Oh yeah, and to answer mathusalem, what are you building so many castles for anyway? If you have Soulgate up all you need a temple (400 as opposed to 800 gold) and you'll get freespawn priests that will crank out undead by the thousands. Not only that, your only 3 sources of dominion increase are: Pretender; Prophet; temples. [OK, you can buy living priests to preech as well, but you have to pay upkeep!] But you can only recruit a (living) priest where you have built a temple anyway.

[otthegreat]

Castles freespawn the better Roman legionnaire undead.

[hnchrist3]

Yeah, but at 800/1000 gold a pop? I spend that on providence defense and not castles. The problem with castles are they are transient: yours today, someone else's tomorrow. Then you have to bother with a siege to get it back. Just ugly all around.

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Oh, one of the things I forgot to say is that Ermor's new/original death rate pretty much makes it impossible to have a blood economy. Kind of tough to pull virgins out of a population zero province.

[Zeldor]

Just lol.

[Gregstrom]

PD is more transient than castles are - you can't reclaim it.

[hnchrist3]

True, Gregstrom, but it does not switch sides and it weakens an opponent.