Newbie enjoying undead, looking for advice

[Aleph]

I don't find that to be too much of my style for LA Ermor. I'm often assembling small armies out of the freespawns and throwing them at whatever is handy. I usually have more troops available for smashing indeps than I know what to do with, and I tend to use battle magic, Wailing ladies, and dominion affecting spells to wipe out opposing pretender's armies. I can see forging for Ryleh (who also have a lot more natural advantages at it, given that they have pretty much everything but air/blood/fire in their available recruits) given their ability to mix freespawn and chosen recruits - a couple ice pebble staves or black bows in the hands of commanders / cultists can really add up. But I've only scratched the surface of gameplay thus far, so perhaps that's something I need to try.

[Taqwus]

Earth is a potentially very valuable path for Ermor; most of the more common free-castle or free-income sites for magic provinces are Earth. A bonus 100-gold site will pay you 200 when taxed 200% even if all the population is dead.

Fire can also help for the alchemy income, but it gives you less free stuff like free fortresses.

A quasitraditional Dom2 build involved getting most paths at least at level 2, except for blood -- blood is almost completely useless for the Ashen Empire since you will rapidly lose population and it's difficult to get blood slaves. It's harder in Dom3 now that randoms tend to be restricted; for instance, you can't get a blood spectre, so you would end up having even fewer effective hunters than before.

[Aleph]

I tried the all 2+ with an Enchantress, threw Twiceborn on her, killed her off, to try to protect her from Burden of Time. She got diseased when she died, but it had no effect on her as a Wight. However, when Burden of Time came out, she started collecting afflictions like mad. Scrap that game and that idea. I guess I could just give her Elixir of Life instead.

My current build ideas are either Lich Queen with Water/Earth/Nature 3, Astral 5, Death 6, or Master Lich with 2 Fire/Air/Earth, Water/Nature 3, Astral 5, Death 6. The Master Lich's fragility makes me nervous, but I suppose I can keep him out of harm's way with magic, and he is immortal. Both the Queen and the Master can afford to summon Naiads for clams, which made me really happy when I realized that was viable since it really drove my last Ryleh game (I know, it's probably old hat to everyone else...).

[Endoperez]

Master Lich won't die as long as he's in your dominion. If he "dies", he is back to your home province. As Ashen Empire, your dominion should be as strong as possible. So you can use him for everything but waging wars deep inside enemy lands. Immortality also means that he heals any afflictions he might get, btw.

[Shovah32]

Both masterlich(cheap paths) and the lich queen(high dom, med price paths) can get high dom and versatile magic with LA ermor.

[Aleph]

Do either of you have strong thoughts on the choices between the two? My thoughts seem to change after every game, but right now Master Lich is looking pretty good for a long game - F/A/E/N 2 W 3 S 6 D 5 lets him start out as a site searcher, kick off the Naiad/clam economy, and move easily to S 9 or D 9 with items alone - and if need him for an SC I can always Wish him to power. Is including Wish in my strategies sort of besides the point for Ermor?

Aside 1 - is there a way to know which creatures are vulnerable to aging? Undead not, obviously, and I'd assume demons and any recuperating creature. Anyone else?

Aside 2 - How does the national spell Soul Gate work? It's not in the manual and its blurb isn't clear.

Aside 3 - every once in a while, when playing LA Ermor with dominion 10, I get a message that my troops have been beaten somewhere, and I pop to the location to find a place with reasonable amounts of my dominion way the heck in the middle enemy territory where I have never been. What's going on here.

[Meglobob]

Aleph said:
Aside 3 - every once in a while, when playing LA Ermor with dominion 10, I get a message that my troops have been beaten somewhere, and I pop to the location to find a place with reasonable amounts of my dominion way the heck in the middle enemy territory where I have never been. What's going on here.

Your dominion creates free undead spawn, thus a enemy province is getting your undead spawned in it, resulting in a battle of PD vs undead spawn.

Why the dominion spreads so far away is strange...I have had this with other 10 dominion nations, was like getting free spy reports.

[Sandman]

Aside 3 - every once in a while, when playing LA Ermor with dominion 10, I get a message that my troops have been beaten somewhere, and I pop to the location to find a place with reasonable amounts of my dominion way the heck in the middle enemy territory where I have never been. What's going on here.

It's a special event that sees another player attacked by 'ermorian cultists'. If they win, you get the province and a handful of troops. It's linked to misfortune and death scales, IIRC.

[Aleph]

So, not really a function of anything I do, then.

Soul Gate - I get it, roughly, but I'm still looking for details. Is the dealout random? I know it varies by temple, but there's several kinds of ghoulies and I like some of the rarer ones.

New Aside - is there any way to automate site searching? I use Dark Knowledge for all the death sites, but it gets really tiresome for the others and I don't have the numbers of Astral Mages, or the desire to throw around so many pearls, to make Akashic worthwhile. Is there any way to automate either physical searching or spell based searching? (And if not, may I suggest the latter for dominions 4?)

[Aleph]

Oop - nevermind on the searching question, there's a topic easily found on that.

I'm fully in favor of the Master Lich now, BTW - in part due to easier multipathing, and in part due to the extra misc item slot. Ring of Wizardry/Ring of Sorcery/other path boosting item is really nice.