Ermor themes, too strong?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I don't happen to have Dominions 1, so I have no idea what you're talking about. Besides, it is irrelevant: Ermor will always have a more ridiculously huge number of troops than a living nation:

No, it really isn't irrelevant. In Dominions I, a living nation player had more than twice as much gold to throw around eac and every turn than they do now. That translates into a lot more units and especially a lot more mages and priests to handle the undead.

Incorrect: There is a maximum number of troops that Ermor (or any nation) is allowed to have, after which Ermor will not be able to receive any more troops, and any attempts to summon better troops risks failure due to this limit.

Yes, and we all know that every other nation can afford to have 32767 troops plus several dozen mages sitting around.

This is certainly an advantage, but I don't see it as overwhelming: Other nations are perfectly capable of switching to summoned, no-upkeep mages as well.

So what, they're supposed to squander their death gems (if they can even find them affordably with their mages) empowering a mage, then summoning spectres?

[quote]I see you've caught onto my remote temple burning strategy. Building fortresses in every province with a temple, this is basically necessary anyway: Ghost Riders is not the only remote-raiding spell, and fliers, or flying SCs, can easily maraud completely unchecked, leaving you to try to guess their next move in a giant, extremely aggravating, whack-a-mole, unless you build forts.[quote]

Ghost riders is the _only_ remote attack spell that comes anywhere near its power level. Army of the dead doesn't supply you with a wraith lord.

Province defense can stop very lightweight attacks, but is generally worthless against a human player, and there is really no point to using it other than to run off scouts.

Province defense of 10 can stop just about any remote attack spell other than ghost riders cold.

Fortresses, no matter how lousy, however, do something that NO amount of PD can do: No matter HOW large the attacking army is, you will always buy yourself a minimum of one turn to respond.

And the typical fort costs 300-450 gold, which is far too expensive to build in every province other than if you plan to bore your opponents to death.

It should also be noted that Ermor is not even the only nation capable of using remote summons, including Ghost Riders. I regularly employ the use of Ghost Riders for temple burnings as living nations as well.

The only other nation that has cheap access to Ghost Riders is C'Tis.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
No, it really isn't irrelevant. In Dominions I, a living nation player had more than twice as much gold to throw around eac and every turn than they do now. That translates into a lot more units and especially a lot more mages and priests to handle the undead.

If you really feel it's such a problem, you can always choose to play on Rich world: That would give you your Dominions I balance back. Me, I think you're just spoiled by too much gold.

Yes, and we all know that every other nation can afford to have 32767 troops plus several dozen mages sitting around.

This from the guy who claimed to have several hundred mystics and astrologers camping out in his capitol?

So what, they're supposed to squander their death gems (if they can even find them affordably with their mages) empowering a mage, then summoning spectres?

If you don't HAVE any death mages, it's a little hard to do anything else with your death gems. It's not that hard to find and equip a death-1 or 2 mage with equipment needed to forge more +death items.

Province defense of 10 can stop just about any remote attack spell other than ghost riders cold.

I've overrun PD 10 with Arouse Hunger, Imprint Souls, Hordes from Hell....PD is simply unable to cope. If you can't beat it with just one casting, use two or three. What are you, the AI? Do you not care if you succeed or fail? Anything worth doing is worth doing with excessive force.

[quote]And the typical fort costs 300-450 gold, which is far too expensive to build in every province other than if you plan to bore your opponents to death.[/QUOTE
When you consider how much it would cost you to maintain a standing army or PD capable of stopping the attacks that forts can, forts are a bargain! It is difficult or impossible for a typical standing army to fight off, say, 10 casting of Ghost Riders. A single fort, even the lowly 0-point watchtower, can ward off an infinite number of Ghost Riders. Even a PD of 125 cannot stop a rampaging ice devil: A single watch tower stops it cold. A fort can stop or delay enemies that no army you can muster at any reasonable, or even unreasonable, cost can.

The only other nation that has cheap access to Ghost Riders is C'Tis.

It's not all that difficult to get access to death-4 mages, Graeme. Once you have a D2 mage, he can forge a skullstaff and skullface, and voila, D4 mage. After all, if you have no other sources of death mages, what ELSE would you do with death gems? You need death mages to even use death gems, and nearly any nation can afford to get death gems, given that Dark Knowledge requires only a single rank of death magic, which most nations will surely roll on a random sooner or later.

[Taqwus]

Anybody that can summon Lamia Queens has a decent chance of getting a Death-3 or even Death-4 queen without expending vast amounts of death gems, too.

[GavinWheeler]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
In short, it is absolutely NOT necessary to form a massive coalition and turn the game into a gigantic anti-undead crusade: It is perfectly possible for most nations to take on an Ermor of relatively equal size unassisted...

Soooo... a self-confessed Ermor fan is effectively saying "no need to gang up and squash Ermor before it gets rolling, just give me twenty turns or so then all come at me one by one"?

[Peter Ebbesen]

Ether Gate also provides you with a rather neat death/astral/random mage as part of the bundle - but SSSSD and 90 Astral gems is a pretty steep requirement to cast it.

[ April 11, 2004, 18:11: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Graeme Dice]

If you really feel it's such a problem, you can always choose to play on Rich world: That would give you your Dominions I balance back. Me, I think you're just spoiled by too much gold.

Let's take a look at the two Ermorian themes then. From Dom 1 to Dom 2 their amount of available design points dropped by 50. They also gained more survivability for their troops as banish was reduced in effectiveness. Every other nation, on the other hand, has half as much gold to use.

This from the guy who claimed to have several hundred mystics and astrologers camping out in his capitol?

A hundred is different from several hundred and that type of game is hardly a good candidate for making game balance decisions. Even so, that's all I had besides summoned troops, since the upkeep was approaching 1000 gold per turn, and even the world map doesn't give you much more than that in income.

If you don't HAVE any death mages, it's a little hard to do anything else with your death gems.

If you don't have any death mages, you're going to have a hard time creating one with death 2 or 3.

I've overrun PD 10 with Arouse Hunger, Imprint Souls, Hordes from Hell....PD is simply unable to cope. If you can't beat it with just one casting, use two or three.

So you just happen to have a few hundred nature gems sitting around to cast multiple calls of the wilds every turn? Imprint souls is 25 astral pearls, so it's a once every two or three turns deal. Arouse hunger has nowhere near the offensive potential of ghost riders. 10 ghouls isn't quite the same potency of a force as 33 longdead horsemen and a wraith lord.

A single fort, even the lowly 0-point watchtower, can ward off an infinite number of Ghost Riders.

So what, people are supposed to ignore their national troops and build pure summoned armies just so that they can have a low cost fortress?

A fort can stop or delay enemies that no army you can muster at any reasonable, or even unreasonable, cost can.

And that's one of the serious balance problems. Your conventional troops should never become useless, and should always remain the most important part of your army. As it stands right now, the game just degenerates into who can build the better SC faster.

It's not all that difficult to get access to death-4 mages, Graeme. Once you have a D2 mage, he can forge a skullstaff and skullface, and voila, D4 mage.

Most nations don't even have death 2 mages, so it's hardly a bargain to spend 60 gems to get a single mage capable of casting death 4 spells.

[archaeolept]

Originally posted by GavinWheeler:

quote:

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Originally posted by Norfleet:
In short, it is absolutely NOT necessary to form a massive coalition and turn the game into a gigantic anti-undead crusade: It is perfectly possible for most nations to take on an Ermor of relatively equal size unassisted...

Soooo... a self-confessed Ermor fan is effectively saying "no need to gang up and squash Ermor before it gets rolling, just give me twenty turns or so then all come at me one by one"?

---

yup. that is exactly what he always says

along w/ saying that the "paralyse bug" hurt him more than it hurt others (this while he was playing SG ermor and r'lyeh )

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by GavinWheeler:
Soooo... a self-confessed Ermor fan is effectively saying "no need to gang up and squash Ermor before it gets rolling, just give me twenty turns or so then all come at me one by one"?

That is hardly what I am saying at all: What I am saying is that many times playing *AS* Ermor, I've run into the confused panic of other players....who rush at me willy-nilly with no sense of plan or attainable objective, and die.

This is incredibly stupid.

Sun Tzu, "Art of War"
Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical.

Hence the enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution. This is the way to keep a country at peace and an army intact.

At the same time, in games I am playing AGAINST Ermor, as another nation(I've actually played more Mictlan than Ermor!), I feel no compulsion to rush. While it is true that Ermor's mass of rabble grows larger the longer I leave it alone, they are just that: A mass of meaningless rabble, usable only as cannon fodder, and easily dispatched in the hundreds if the right tactics are used. The wrong tactics, naturally, spell certain doom.

When fighting Ermor, you must always be mindful of guarding your flank: The nature of Ermor's troop-raising is such that Ermor can afford to attack in many places at once: You must be careful not to allow him to cut you off, and you must not overextend yourself into his territory, for then you will find yourself surrounded and cut off: Always be certain that your fallback position is secured from attack: If a battle goes badly against an Ermorian army, it is inevitably the case that your troop screen will be routed first: This will then result in your commanders routing: If are not able to maintain a fallback position, you will be wiped out to the Last man: If you can secure a point of retreat, you will preserve the most expensive and important component of your army: Your mages and priests.

Fighting Ermor is not like fighting other nations: Blitzing through empty provinces and beelining for his capitol or other apparently important provinces is useless. Ermor has few, if any, important provinces, and those that he values are not necessarily manifestly obvious. When you fight Ermor, you are fighting for ground, not for specific provinces. Advance slowly, cautiously, and relentlessly. Do not squander your men and material on pointless attacks.

Never act rashly: Ermor may grow more powerful with time, but so do you: Ermor's numbers are not your primary threat, merely your ticket into the hall of fame.

[ April 11, 2004, 18:42: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by archaeolept:
along w/ saying that the "paralyse bug" hurt him more than it hurt others (this while he was playing SG ermor and r'lyeh )

Meh. The Paralyze bug is gone now, and I will be among the first to dance with joy for its loss. Yet I continue to play SG Ermor, and R'lyeh.

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Let's take a look at the two Ermorian themes then. From Dom 1 to Dom 2 their amount of available design points dropped by 50. They also gained more survivability for their troops as banish was reduced in effectiveness. Every other nation, on the other hand, has half as much gold to use.

Banish seems rather effective to me. Seeing as they've upgraded the accuracy of all ranged weapons, including banish, in the new 2.11 patch, banish works much better.

Even so, that's all I had besides summoned troops, since the upkeep was approaching 1000 gold per turn, and even the world map doesn't give you much more than that in income.

That's all you NEED. Why would you need hordes of rabble? They're the wrong tools for the job.

If you don't have any death mages, you're going to have a hard time creating one with death 2 or 3.

You can easily get a death-1 random in many nations: That allows you to dark knowledge for gems, and you will surely wind up with a larger pile of death gems than Ermor will, because you have practically no use for them. So why NOT create some items and summons to get you some death-2+ mages? Gotta use all those death gems SOMEHOW. If you simply neglect the fact that you can find death gem sites in your territory, then you are simply willfully squandering your available natural resources.

quote:

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I've overrun PD 10 with Arouse Hunger, Imprint Souls, Hordes from Hell....PD is simply unable to cope. If you can't beat it with just one casting, use two or three.

So you just happen to have a few hundred nature gems sitting around to cast multiple calls of the wilds every turn?

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Call of Wild is able to easily crunch through weak PD nations with one cast. Furthermore, the wolves stick around if they win, and the werewolf you get can summon more wolves. The entire mass is also stealthy, so you can hit the target, then skulk off and try to burn neighboring temples as well. Furthermore, since the entire mess *DOES* stick around, Call of the Wild can cut off lines even when the target province contains a fort: Ghost Riders and Phantasmal Attack cannot, and are more or less totally useless against a fortified province.

Imprint souls is 25 astral pearls, so it's a once every two or three turns deal.

This from the man who argues Astral Pearls are free after turn 20? It almost sounds like you don't believe that astrals are actually free....because they're not. You are right that this is a once every two or three turns deal....but timing is everything. Simply casting it willy-nilly is a useless waste. Timing, timing, timing.

Arouse hunger has nowhere near the offensive potential of ghost riders. 10 ghouls isn't quite the same potency of a force as 33 longdead horsemen and a wraith lord.

No, but it isn't a level 9 spell, either, and number of ghouls increases with the power of the death mage.

quote:

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A single fort, even the lowly 0-point watchtower, can ward off an infinite number of Ghost Riders.

So what, people are supposed to ignore their national troops and build pure summoned armies just so that they can have a low cost fortress?

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That is definitely a perfectly valid strategy favored by several nations. There's also your wizard's tower. I used to think that the wizard's tower was immensely overpriced pointwise, but now I see that it's actually a very attractive option if you wish to continue to use your national troops AND have a quickly deployable fortress of low cost.

And that's one of the serious balance problems. Your conventional troops should never become useless, and should always remain the most important part of your army. As it stands right now, the game just degenerates into who can build the better SC faster.

Bombers, tanks, infantry. The order of usage is very important to a successful blitzkrieg, and neglecting any of these makes a far less successful blitz attack. Your national troops are not obsolete, you are merely using them for the wrong purpose.

Most nations don't even have death 2 mages, so it's hardly a bargain to spend 60 gems to get a single mage capable of casting death 4 spells.

Why not? Do you have something better to do with death gems, when all you can do is cast death-1, or even no, death spells at all? I suppose you could trade them to an ally who CAN, but that simply means you have somebody else to cast them for you. Otherwise, what else would you do with them? Alchemizing them into something else is not exactly the most economical deal either, particularly if with only a small initial outlay, you can afford to begin fielding your own death mages....quite possibly to the great surprise of an opponent who does not expect you to have any, let alone an entire cadre of mound kings, liches, and spectres.

[ April 11, 2004, 19:04: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
This from the man who argues Astral Pearls are free after turn 20?

They are if you're exploiting clams to win. if you're playing the game with the limited incomes that you would get from territory, and from no alchemizing astral pearls back into water gems, then they are still quite expensive. Especially when you consider just how many starshine skullcaps, AMAs, and lucky coins it takes to outfit your SCs properly.