Battling Ermoria

[jarenko]

First of all, thank you all for the warm welcome. Barely registered, and just a few hours later I have a PM in my box.

Secondly, it is a pleasure to be here.

Thirdly, I have seen some topics on this but none that answer me satisfactorily. I often play Dominions with a friend, and he often (or always) uses Ermor and seems to defeat me without fail. That in itself is not very signifigant, as I seem to always lose regardless.

I think I have a lot to learn, but in general - what are some effective tactics in fighting the dead?

So far, I tend to use just my troops, I think my weakness may be I leave the AI to cast whatever spells it wants, and dont really bother powering anyone up but my pretender.

I usually make my pretender either a fighter(Wyrm) or a magic user(archmage/freak lord, etc), but I usually create what I think is referred here as a "rainbow mage", and don't bother giving anyone else magic levels.

Comments on the strengths(if ANY :P), and weaknesses of my playing style are quite welcome.

My favorite realms are Ulm, Man, though lately I gave Caelium a shot. Love the mammoths but can't stand the weak troops. Again I think my lack of attention to magic may be partially responsible for my ingame failures.

[reverend]

Welcome to the forum!

I'm still a bit new myself, but I'll just throw in my 2 �-cents:

If it's against undead Ermor, the obvious answer is "priests".

And even if you play Ulm (I like to play Iron Faith myself), DON'T neglect magic. Strong commanders still need good items, and you wouldn't believe what Ulmish smiths can do with their blade winds on a good day.

[Ironhawk]

A solid way to defeat Ermor is to play the nation most diametrically opposed to them: Marignon. First and foremost, Marignon has dominion which kills undead. Second, it has a wide selection of priests (which you should be using in abundance). And Lastly its national spell is Holy Pyre so right out of the box your fire mages should be able to massacare the undead.

In strategic terms you should also attempt to go to war with Ermor as soon as possible. Ermor gets most of its base troops for free and does not pay upkeep nor have supply restrictions. Attack them while your priests and fire mages have the relative advantage.

[jarenko]

So lets say the situation is a 2 player game on a relatively small map(40 provinces or so), and both players agree not to go to war for awhile so both nations take a 20/20 split on the land and thus have time to build up.

Lets say war starts on turn 50. With this much time to develop, does Ermor carry a heavy advantage?

My initial belief was they were terribly overpowered, but the consensus here as I've read it is that they're not overpowered at all, and they are very beatable, especially by a skilled player.

When you say their dominion kills undead, how do you mean?

[Cainehill]

jarenko said:
So lets say the situation is a 2 player game on a relatively small map(40 provinces or so), and both players agree not to go to war for awhile so both nations take a 20/20 split on the land and thus have time to build up.

Lets say war starts on turn 50. With this much time to develop, does Ermor carry a heavy advantage?

If you wait until turn 50 on that small map, yes Ermor has a big advantage. By then, they've killed all the population, making their 20 provinces a no-man's land for the living - no supplies, no resources, no gold income. Your armies starve when you try to invade his provinces, and you get very little for your efforts - magic gems, if there are any sites in the province.

And yes, you're making a mistake by only using / building up magic on your pretender. This is true against any nation, but against Ermor perhaps a little more so - the undead never have a problem with morale or fatigue, so your troops are just tiring themselves out until ... they die, after taking a handful of undead each, at most.

Your mages, though, can be very effective, especially with spells that effect an area. Many of these spells do more damage, and cover a larger area, if the mage is powerful in that area of magic. And Ermor's troops, by and large, are very vulnerable to these spells - little or no armor on most, and no healing between battles.

(Although they _will_ heal if visiting a friendly lab.)

Your pretender just can't shoulder it all by himself. Especially as either a Wyrm or a human rainbow mage.

[Molog]

Don't only magic non-healing units get repaired at labs? Not ermors undead.

[Arryn]

Molog said:
Don't only magic non-healing units get repaired at labs? Not ermors undead.

Correct.

[Sheap]

I have to disagree with Ironhawk (and only in part because I am playing Ermor in a game that he is in ) Of course this applies only to the undead themes of Ermor, which are most common.

Ermor's base troops are free, but this matters only if you attempt to fight them hand to hand with your base troops. Ermor, if he doesn't lose his troops in battles, may have several hundred or even thousand troops sitting around. However, most of these troops are completely useless. The weaker variants (Soulless for Ashen Empire, or Dispossessed Spirits for Soul Gate) are so bad in battle that about the only thing they can do is soak up hits. Longdeads for AE, or Spectral Legionnaires for SG, are slightly better. But they still have problems; longdeads never heal and have few HP, and SG's spectral soldiers have attacks that are negated by magic resistance. Pound for pound, these guys are really bad fighters.

It's true that Ermor gets stronger as the game goes on, but that is true of every empire. There's nothing special about Ermor. In fact, the longer the game goes on, the easier it gets to blow up huge numbers of undead troops.

Ermor's mages, while upkeep-free, are also tremendously expensive in initial cost. Its research is not really all that great, and its magical diversity (other than on the pretender) is practically nil.

Ermor's one big advantage is the number of points it has to spend on its pretender, which is far more than any other nation. Ermor's pretender will *always* be a competent SC, and will usually be more powerful than the pretenders of other empires, except those who focus on combat to the exclusion of all else.

Finally, Ermor has only one natural resource, magic gems. Most empires have gems, gold, and resources. They may tend to have more gems, but they have to spend this one resource on mages and many of their regular troops, that other nations could spend gold for. For instance, Ermor has to summon its archers, whereas other nations can buy them. Then they also have to spend their gems on summons and magic items like everyone else. Ermor has a horrible, chronic gem shortage.

Ironhawk's assessment of the Marignon dominion is wrong, but I have to take the blame, since I was the one that gave him the wrong information. Only the Marignon home province kills undead (and it continues to do so even if not controlled by Marignon). The rest of the Marignon dominion has only the usual enemy-dominion effects.

[Agrajag]

But the usual dominion effect is still good.
Since the amount of freespawns and reanimationspawns depends on dominion.

[Vynd]

jarenko said:
Thirdly, I have seen some topics on this but none that answer me satisfactorily. I often play Dominions with a friend, and he often (or always) uses Ermor and seems to defeat me without fail. That in itself is not very signifigant, as I seem to always lose regardless.

I think I have a lot to learn, but in general - what are some effective tactics in fighting the dead?

So far, I tend to use just my troops, I think my weakness may be I leave the AI to cast whatever spells it wants, and dont really bother powering anyone up but my pretender.

I usually make my pretender either a fighter(Wyrm) or a magic user(archmage/freak lord, etc), but I usually create what I think is referred here as a "rainbow mage", and don't bother giving anyone else magic levels.

Comments on the strengths(if ANY :P), and weaknesses of my playing style are quite welcome.

My favorite realms are Ulm, Man, though lately I gave Caelium a shot. Love the mammoths but can't stand the weak troops. Again I think my lack of attention to magic may be partially responsible for my ingame failures.

Magic is the central aspect of the game. I don't think you can be successful at Dominions without it, even if you are playing a relatively "non-magical" nation like Ulm. And to ignore magic when playing with Caelum, one of the magically strongest nations in the game, is definitely a mistake.

As far as defeating Ermor goes, there has been lots of good advice on that already. I especially like the suggestion of trying Marignon, their priests and Holy Pyre spells slaughter undead units.

If you want to stick with the nations you already know, invest in priests. You can form squads of flying Serpahs to strike behind Ermor's front lines, banish his free troops, and generally make his life miserable.

Also, remember that Ermor's ranged attacks are pretty much limited to javelins and a few spells. So archers, which Man and Caelum certainly have, are your friends.

But magic is definitely your best bet. A few mages with the right spells (many of them mentioned above by other folks) can destroy entire armies of Ermor's free undead troops.