Soul Gate Ermor tips?

[LintMan]

I've yet to play as Ermor of any type, so I thought I'd try out the Soul Gate flavor. (Single player).

Since I'm completely unfamiliar with SG Ermor, I'm hoping for some tips to help me get started off right. (My plan is to play the Cradle map, with 7-8 impossible AIs, rich world, 75% sites, indeps 8)

- What's a good choice for a good SC pretender? I'm thinking about taking the Ghost King but am open to other suggestions

- What scales to take? Can I max out all the scales to -3 except Magic? Or would it be wise to take some order or luck or something? Is 6 a reasonable starting dominion for SG Ermor?

- What magic paths are useful/necessary? Is taking more than 5 Death useful, presuming I can eventually get to 7+ with items?

- I know that you can't recruit units with SG Ermor, and they just show up. Does a higher dominion provide more units and/or better units?
Do commanders also appear, or do they all have to be summoned?

- Any good tips on how to start out the game? (Ie: what to do, what to summon the first few turns)

Thanks!

[Master Shake]

If you want to get a feel for Ermor, you might want to try Ashen Empire first - it's easier to handle and better against the AI imo.

Dominion is very important, so build temples. It determines how many units spawn in each province. To get the best units to spawn, you need castles/temples/labs.

I would not suggest taking minus Luck - it's a pain to lose temples to random events, especially since you don't get a huge income base. Research is tough to get going - some sages early on can really help and make some skulls (+9 research).

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by LintMan:
I've yet to play as Ermor of any type, so I thought I'd try out the Soul Gate flavor. (Single player).

Well, I'm not that good at the game, but when I want a 'low-upkeep' game, I play SG Ermor.

Since I'm completely unfamiliar with SG Ermor, I'm hoping for some tips to help me get started off right. (My plan is to play the Cradle map, with 7-8 impossible AIs, rich world, 75% sites, indeps 8)

Sounds good to me.

- What's a good choice for a good SC pretender? I'm thinking about taking the Ghost King but am open to other suggestions

With the VQ's removal, I think the PoD would be the best choice. Ghost King is probably right up there too, especially if you plan on taking a lot of magic.

- What scales to take? Can I max out all the scales to -3 except Magic? Or would it be wise to take some order or luck or something? Is 6 a reasonable starting dominion for SG Ermor?

Luck-3 is your friend. You really don't want Misfortune. And I always take Dominion of 10 with Ermor. I don't know if that's the smart move or not, but see below.

- What magic paths are useful/necessary? Is taking more than 5 Death useful, presuming I can eventually get to 7+ with items?

5 sounds fine. With a Skullface and the Scepter, you can get to 9. Oh, there's also the book, so 10. IIRC, one of the best reasons to have a sky-high Death magic is Summoning Ghosts (Conjuration-6).

- I know that you can't recruit units with SG Ermor, and they just show up. Does a higher dominion provide more units and/or better units?
Do commanders also appear, or do they all have to be summoned?

IME, higher dominion improves both quantity and quality of troops. One reason to take a 10 Dominion. As far as commanders, you summon most of them. The nice thing is that you can get Shadow Tribunes (your low-level Unholy priest) randomly in provinces that have Temples (I think; I'm not sure about Temple or not). I've also heard you can get more Wraith Centurions randomly.

- Any good tips on how to start out the game? (Ie: what to do, what to summon the first few turns)

Well, what I generally do is make my starting Wraith Centurion my prophet. That more or less makes him extremely powerful, and _almost_ a SC himself (18 Prot Ethereal Immortal). First thing I'd do with your Pretender is Summon a Spectator. It's a DD mage for 12 gems. While not as versatile as a Dusk Elder (DDD? for 20), they can summon themselves, and under a Magic-3 scale, they definitely research faster. Under a Rich setting, you get 15 gems a turn. This coincidentally equals 1 Spectator + 1 Dark Knowledge a turn.

As far as what to research, if you have a SC Pretender, you probably want to research the schools for his buffing magic. Otherwise, Conjuration is probably the way to go.

Now, IF you plan on going the Conjuration route, you may want to summon Dusk Elders instead of Spectators. Dusk Elders can naturally summon Spectres (which are better researchers than the Spectators for less cost), and with a single booster can cast Ghost Riders.

Thanks!

I hope this helps. If it doesn't, feel free to ream me.

Scott

[Taqwus]

Scales: I would take +3 magic, but would be reluctant to take misfortune. Do take 3 death, sloth and turmoil; you'll lose your population anyway, and even if you had the production to recruit indies you'd have trouble paying the maintenance (even with order-3; taxpayers don't count once they're dead).

Pretender magic: I would aim for a rainbow-ish pretender (2, pref. 3, in most of the magic paths, ignoring blood, and minimum of 5 in death). Above 5 death isn't that important compared to, say, having a good dominion strength (you won't be able to afford many temples quickly, but it affects your undead auto-reanimation) and probably a good castle (one with towers, for instance).

I would largely ignore blood magic on the pretender as you won't be able to make good use of, say, a Mount Chaining, even if you found one. Most of the blood sites you'll find will cause unrest and let you recruit weak indies, if you had the money, which you won't. If you want to prioritize, I'd put Earth-3 fairly high on the list of wants, for the reasonably common Firbolg Fortress (saves you considerable money), Fire-2/3 for alchemy reasons... and would not use astral unless it were at least 4 and pref. 5 min with intent to have starshine cap and somebody else toting a Banner of the Northern Star.


BTW, unlike Ashen Empire, you auto-generate unholy priests (weak ones, but priests). Your highest-end summonable unholy priests are very, very expensive but immortal and have better stats than their Ashen counterparts. You will have no cavalry unless you explicitly summon Pale Riders. You will have far fewer sacred units. Your troops will have trouble against high-MR troops (phantasmal weapons are resistable) and will be mauled by flaming arrows (magic weapon ignores ethereal) or even Blade Wind (spells ignore ethereal), as your troops have low prot. Be careful.

Oh, and death is not too hard to boost madly if you research Construction and Conjuration. Construction gets you the +1-death staff and helm, as well as a unique +3 sceptre (!). Helm/sceptre = +4. If you can build the unique blood/death tome, that's another +1. Conjuration gets you a demilich, which is a death-4 chassis, and Dusk Elders are d3/?1.. Yowch. D7 + Conj-9 gets you Tartarians, although it's hard to exploit them without strong nature magic.

[Starfighter08]

I'm thinking about startig an Ermor game (SP) too, but I've trouble distinguishing between priests and mages. Could a kind soul tell me which units are mages and which are priests in SG and AE? Thanks in advance.

Actually Demilich's are in the Enchantment School. Though you can get a D3 Wraith Lord or Mound Fiend in the Conjuration Path.

Edit:

Mages: Dusk Elder (3D?), Spectator (2D)

Priests: Shadow Tribune, Wraith Senator, Wraith Consul, Acolyte, Bishop, Arch-Bishop

[ June 11, 2004, 16:10: Message edited by: Zen ]