Some Ashen Empire Ermor questions,need some advice

[Agrajag]

Peter Ebbesen said:
Not quite. The only living troops I'll recruit are indy mages and mercenaries [and I have the income to pay top dollar for them, practically guaranteeing that I get them, thus also depriving others of early game expansion boost]

And with no pretender, who has the magic skill to build the lab required to recruit those indy mages?
You could just wait for a mage mercenary, but you still aren't guaranteed to get it (and if you spend all your money on it, then you are losing the advantage of Dormancy in gold)

[Peter Ebbesen]

Agrajag said:

And with no pretender, who has the magic skill to build the lab required to recruit those indy mages?
You could just wait for a mage mercenary, but you still aren't guaranteed to get it (and if you spend all your money on it, then you are losing the advantage of Dormancy in gold)

Yup, indy mages are only after pretender breaks free and at least two rounds of summoning dusk elders or if you should get an indy mercenary mage, and only if you find them, of course, not worth spending more than 200-300 gold to get hold of. Not that that differs mightly from most other nations - few nations, even if they find independents early, will recruit independent mages the first few rounds as they've got other and better things to spend their gold on - as does Ermor; mercenaries and castles.

There are no guarantees here. As stated in the opening, it is a risky gambit, and the only thing that comes close to a guarantee is that you'll get better castle-building going and that, if you are right in your assessment and don't get jumped, you'll have a higher income for considerably longer time, resulting in a stronger non-magical position in the mid to endgame. Translating that into victory obviously depends on the circumstances of what you find.

But don't trust me saying it can work - playing styles differ, as do the opponenents you face. Try it out (in a non-blitz game on a mid-to-large sized map) and see how it works for you, or run a couple of SP simulations where you expand to the range you'd expect to do it in MP and see what your gold income, castle situation, and undead generation per turn looks like after 5, 10, 15 rounds compared to a normal awake start. Who knows, it might not ever be worth it for you in the games you'll play, but then again, it might. Depends on situation.