MP Guide to MA Ermor

[Saxon]

Interesting guide, thanks for pulling something substantial together on MA Ermor, it has not gotten much attention in the past.

One comment, you have Fanaticism being cast three times in one script. If I recall, it is only effective once per battle. I am not sure, but if so, you don’t want to burn your script up with something that only works once. Personally, I almost always put Fanaticism at the end of the scripts. My thought is, more units have been wounded then and can benefit from the boost in morale.

It is also worth mentioning the usefulness of Death Mentors to counter the research problems this nation faces. Death gems are common with your paths and they are easy to manufacture with your Grand Thaum’s. I tend to slap them on indy mages and let the national mages focus on re-animation.

Tied to that, to get really big armies, you need to re-animate more than just horsemen. Yes, horsemen are great, but the capital only recruitment limits the total size you can pull off. The long dead and soulless are not that exciting, but when you have hundreds of them, backed by Darkness, Army of Gold or various other buffs, they are dangerous. They are also, by definition, chaff. You need some of that to protect your horsemen, who should not be thrown away so lightly.

I like the Oracle build, I will have to try it out.

[Ming]

Excellent guide.

The danger point of your strategy seems to be at the mid-game, before your late game spells are ready. I would suggest finding the design points to add E2 which could lead to dwarven hammer and Troll Kings (and hence important E path buffs before the late game spells are ready). Sacred statue is also a possible alternative as it can substitute as an SC in an emergency in the middle game.

[IndyPendant]

Thanks you two. I hope my guide proves useful to others as well.

Good point about Fanaticism, Saxon! I had somehow forgotten that it (and Sermon of Courage) or only good once on a unit. I will edit my post accordingly.

I'm afraid I don't agree with Skull Mentors and Reanimating Longdead, though. Skull Mentors require Const-4 to craft; by the time you get there, it is either Turn 25+ or you have sacrificed other strategies significantly to get there. The Mentors also cost 10 death gems (or roughly 7 death gems + 3-4 earth gems each, if you can get hammers), plus 6 Horsemen each to craft. And those death gems become far too useful in mid-to-late game to 'waste' 7-10 a pop on Mentors. They just are not worth it imo.

Similarly, for Reanimating Longdead, your research is already going to be dead last for almost half the game. Pulling out Thaums to reanimate when Principes can be used instead, would cause you to fall too far behind in research, even for Ermor. You would just be entering mid-game when everyone else is solidly end-game! Mentors can make up for some of that--but then, again, you're researching Const-4 too early and using up precious death gems. I use my thaums for research and fighting, that's about all I can afford.

Ming, Hammers are definitely useful. But again, by the time you start crafting with Ermor, you're into the mid-30's in turns, minimum, and usually later. By then you will most likely have found at least one indy E1 mage. Empower him to E2 if you must, craft the boots, and start cranking out the hammers. Even without Earth on your pretender, you will most likely have it on someone by the time you need it for crafting. Earth is definitely useful, don't get me wrong. But I don't think it's required on your pretender.

And I'm not sure what you mean by "Sacred Statue". Perhaps Telestic Animation? If so, there are many problems with this. The units have mapmove 0, and require Thaumaturgy-7 and S3 to summon. Which means by the time you can cast them, you're most likely at or near end-game--and your Grand Thaum is not Reanimating horsemen for a number of turns in the process as he limps/teleports to the province you want them at. I can't think of a single use for this spell, where the time and gems involved would not be better served elsewhere. Or am I missing something?

Thanks for the feedback! (And sorry it took so long to respond. I've had an unexpectedly busy week. ; )

--IndyPendant.

[Duggernot]

Telestic Animation

I am currently in a MP game playing Ermor Broken Empire using the Conceptual balance 1.3. I never tried casting the spell before this, but now it is Thaumaturgy level 2, and to me it SCREAMS "Ermor spell." For 5 Astral pearls you get 5 Longdead a turn forever

Duggernot

[sum1lost]

I played against MA ermor, which was played much like you describe in a recent game, and managed to beat them. How?

First, MA ermor isn't terribly good against lifeless troops, including undead. They have powerful death magic, but they use a lot of undead themselves, so many of their counters will take out their own troops as well. Same goes for golems, etc.

Second: Ermor has some very powerful, very expensive mages with astral. They don't have very much astral compred to their actual cost, though. This actually makes them fun targets for magic duels- most other mages with astral will be a much better deal compared to the amount of damage they do. I saw a game where Jotunheim dropped an ermor advance by recruiting sages and vaetti hags with astral, and mind dueling the tar out of ermor. Any astral nation, or nation with decently priced astral indies, can do an excellent job at this.

Third: Old humans. Ermor mages are old, their troops are human, and often old. They have undead, but without their human back up, the undead aren't nearly as scary. If you can afford a burden of time (playing as pangaea, or ryleh, or vanheim), a few turns will devastate Ermor. This is really a late game strategy, and only works for a few nations.

Fourth: Chaffwalls. Ermor relies on its chaffwalls to protect its powerful communions, especially midgame. If you can get through these- I've tried tramplers set to attack rear, my own chaffwalls, mass flying, and battlefield wide spells (earthquake and solar brilliance), you can stop them.