Ermor AE findings

[PDF]

On the surface Ermor AE isn't much different than in Dom2. But after just a few looks it is definitely :

First Soul Gate is now a national AE (big) ritual and not a different theme, so AE should end up playing like AE+SG !

Secondly Unholiness just was removed, Ermor has "normal" Holy priests, but they have the old Unholy spells as national spells and don't have the usual Holy spells.. This is globally equivalent except that now many AE commanders are sacred (Censors for examples) and can benefit from blessings, and that I don't know where the ex-Unholy sites went !

Then the Unholy Sepulchre gives 15 gems instead of 10 on normal setting- that's +50% gems !!

Last- and this may be a bug - Ermor AE starts with 30000 pop as do other nations !!!, and not 5000 as before !
So it gets much more gold, to the point it may be a good idea to have a low dominion so people don't die too soon.
At Dom str 1 you lose only 500 pop/turn so have 60 turns before there is no people to tax...
Yet the manual states AE population is reduced at start

[upstreamedge]

My friend and I are pretty new to Dominions, but it seems to us that AE Ermor is unbalanced. Well, at least in a one on one environment. I would like to know what people think about that.

[PDF]

AE ermor was often deemed as unbalanced...and more so by new players, 'cause undead masses are a special kind of beasties requiring special treatment

But apart from the new gold issue I'd rather think it's less potent now than in Dom2, just because Banishment is more powerful than before.

[thejeff]

Banishment is more powerful?
Enough to make up for priests being a level lower?

I haven't really noticed much of a difference.

(Now, Smite being available at H3. That's nice)

[Graeme Dice]

PDF said:
But apart from the new gold issue I'd rather think it's less potent now than in Dom2, just because Banishment is more powerful than before.

With 2.5 times as much gold flowing around, giving Ermor access to more resources is also necessary to maintain balance.

[PrinzMegaherz]

upstreamedge said:
My friend and I are pretty new to Dominions, but it seems to us that AE Ermor is unbalanced. Well, at least in a one on one environment. I would like to know what people think about that.

Ermor is not that bad if you know beforehand that your enemy will be Ermor.

If you know that you are going to face Ermor, a high dominion is a must as you surely don't want his (usually very strong) dominion spread to your provinces and starts to kill your people.

Just one of the many things that needs to be considered against Ermor

[NTJedi]

PDF said:
and that I don't know where the ex-Unholy sites went !

So all the unholy sites have been removed from the game?

[Teraswaerto]

Inkpot End is still there at least.

Maybe the other ones too but you can find them only with Acashic Records. Or they might all be death sites now.

[Taqwus]

Late-era Ermor running into late-era R'lyeh might be pretty ugly, especially underwater.

R'lyeh Dreamlands dominion has a variety of odd effects, including letting R'lyeh run around with a large number of free H1 priests, of whom quite a few will eventually go insane and prophetize themselves into H3 priests. *Lots* of prophets. And their astral mages can build the Solar Rays spear for any mundane commanders they field.

Then, AE depends on dominion, reanimation, and summons. The latter two require commanders, so any insanity from either the Dreamlands dominion or the use of Void Spectres (which are stealth +25...) can interfere with those.

And AE must bring units with minds to distract the illithids... 3 mounted Mound Kings leading 240 Longdead Horse is an ugly scene, until the illithids all blast the commanders because nobody else is a valid target for mindblasting. Bring extra ghoul-types, wight-types, or ghost-types; the first two are not amphibious, so underwater it's just the ghost-types.

[Tyrant]

Upstreamedge, in answer to your simple question, yes- AE Ermor is unbalanced. This is well known and accepted. Have you noticed Burden of Time yet? They are not unbeatable or anything, but they are very strong, especially in the early game, and there are some nations that have sepecial problems with them.

In MP net games this is fine, you can form an alliance against them or jus hope that they are on the other side of the map.

In smaller games you can use them as a nice intro nation by letting the new guy play AE while the others hone there skills, or you can play 1v2 scenarios, etc.

(disclaimer - i haven't played with them in Dom3, this is based on DomII)