LA Ermor - myth, legend, or overrated tripe?

[Velusion]

I'm playing LA Ermor in the 18 player Eventide game (check out the forum). I seem to be doing fairly well (my army size is like 10x higher than the next runner up) but I don't think I'm in the lead by a long shot.

It's a completely different sort of nation. You are almost playing a whole different sort of game. You overtax and sometimes pilliage your own population - you burn down any fort you can't be sure of keeping - you liquidate the enemy counryside so you win the long war, even while loosing lots of other battles - You put a castle & a temple in every province you can hold - you don't recruit indy troops unless you really need them (ala archers sometimes) - etc...

Diplomacy is everything... do what you have to to make a friend early... bribe, deal, pledge your first born...

The turns also take 2x-4x as long as a normal game - lots of micromanagement. Lots of raiding. You have extremely limited access to non-death magic which is frustrating. I have lots of minor priests spending thier days raising the dead. You are often fighting one or more plays at the same time all the time...

[Gandalf Parker]

Its not the strengths of Ermor. Its the killer dominon. It must be stopped before it spreads too far ruining large parts of the map for anyone but Ermor. Most players recognize this and target Ermor quickly by making lots of priests (basically atomic against LA Ermor). Its also possible for people NOT next to Ermor to help by sending Ermors neighbors some anti-undead weaponry which is unlikely to help that nation later when the two non-ermor nations meet in combat.

Now if you tried a sneaky strategy by EXPECTING those tactics and developing an Ermor which surprises everyone then it might be worth trying but unlikely to work many times in a row.

[Aleph]

I don't hear people making the same sorts of comparisons about LA R'lyeh. Same killer dominion, fewer problems for invading due to starvation, but on the other hand invading commanders invariably go insane. They also have extremely nasty missile troops which work underwater, they start underwater so it's hard row to hoe to dig them out, they still have a gold economy, and in a game of any length they'll end up with hordes of prophets. Is it that they're stronger in MP than Ermor so people don't feel the need to belittle them as much, or are they generally seen as weaker and therefore not needing to be talked about?

[lch]

Velusion certainly surprised me in another game we're playing in Middle Age. I had a game against the AI back in Dom2 when I never saw anything from Ermor except the insanely high troop graph until it was almost too late and the first two armies composed each of 2k undeads came and hit my provinces - I was doing fairly well before. Before that, I was sure of winning, at that moment I was close to defeat and I only got the upper hand back by bringing up the Eternal Pyre and forging Flambeaus like crazy. The game was getting quite interesting because of the sudden change, as I only had about half a dozen Dom2 games in total and I was totally unaware of the situation before. So, I was expecting this type of game with hundreds and thousands of undeads in Middle Age, too, for which I soon prepared temples, priests and spells of mass destruction like Earthquake, but I got hundreds of Principes and Shadow Vestals instead - high defense units which I have to fight in totally different ways because I can't even hit them, and even if I do, I'm not doing much damage because they either have good protection or etherealness.

I don't know how to surprise somebody as LA Ermor, but it might be worth a try to think and play outside of the box.

EDIT: Aleph, I might be wrong, but I think that unless Ermor, R'lyeh's dominion does not kill the population in provinces that they don't own, it "only" makes your commanders insane. Then again, you should either make sure to have dominion in your provinces where your troops are, or not have any troops in there at all. I also believe that the effect from R'lyeh is not as strong as from Ermor when it comes to decimation of the population. And freespawn from R'lyeh are still humans or atleast humanoid, so they suffer from fatigue etc., unlike undeads. Maybe it's because the insanity thing is an added disadvantage for R'lyeh and kind of a funny effect, too.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ermor can be a surprise in a "dam breaking" strategy. Take nearby provinces and sit quiet building up. Let the others take damage clearing the way to reach you and by that time you have converted all of your populace to army. The first nation to reach you gets the bursting of the dam. Its not always a game winning strategy but it can be a major shift of the game that some players might just "rout" the game rather than try to shift their tactics. Very demoralizing.

[Aleph]

Interesting. I had thought that Dreamlands killed wherever it was.

MA Ermor can also spawn undead armies that make LA Ermor's look weak, since it has the best gold recruitable reanimators in the game. Enough Grand Thaumaturgs set to raise undead horsemen will still lead to 2k troop armies coming at you, it just that now they're a) all horse b) didn't require as much micro to get them to you c) have been pumped with Power of the Sepulcher through communions. Even the lesser, satellite armies of Longdead Warriors will still benefit greatly from the Protection/Power of Sepulcher combo, and can of course be leavened with various high protection / defense troops for further strength. Much stronger armies overall than LA, I find, although of course there's none of that lethal dominion.

[TexasHawk]

Interesting.

It seems that you could make a hugely overpowered Pretender by shifting the scales towards all the bad stuff (since that's the point) and creating a hellacious undead SC this way. I was playing with the pretender creator and you can get a lot of points doing it this way, to boost your dominion to 10, and get your death and fire magics to 8 each with some points still left if you take a less powerful form.

Beyond priests and holy items, it just seems to me that LA Ermor is pretty much unstoppable played properly. I didn't play D2 so I don't know the comparisons, but giving this race even 10 turns unmolested seems to be asking for it later. I was under the impression that people won't play someone who was good with Ermor, maybe I'm wrong? That's my question; is it considered 'politically correct' to min-max this particular race given its unique advantages and will people be OK with that?

[Meglobob]

TexasHawk said:
It seems that you could make a hugely overpowered Pretender by shifting the scales towards all the bad stuff (since that's the point) and creating a hellacious undead SC this way. I was playing with the pretender creator and you can get a lot of points doing it this way, to boost your dominion to 10, and get your death and fire magics to 8 each with some points still left if you take a less powerful form.

Beyond priests and holy items, it just seems to me that LA Ermor is pretty much unstoppable played properly.

I agree completely with your first point, when I played LA Ermor I had design points left over that I did not know what to do with, unheard of.

However, LA Ermor is very, very stoppable because there are just so many anti-undead spells and 95% of Ermors army is complete chaff which falls like the leaves in autumn.

Add to this Ermor is hated because of its dominion, so no friends (seriously lethal in MP) and its army grapth and province, castle count go off the scale. Which leads players to form an alliance to destroy Ermor, time and time again. Also it soon becomes 'unfun' to play as you after move hordes of chaff around every turn and the bigger your empire the worse it gets.

[Velusion]

Meglobob said:

I agree completely with your first point, when I played LA Ermor I had design points left over that I did not know what to do with, unheard of.

However, LA Ermor is very, very stoppable because there are just so many anti-undead spells and 95% of Ermors army is complete chaff which falls like the leaves in autumn.

Add to this Ermor is hated because of its dominion, so no friends (seriously lethal in MP) and its army grapth and province, castle count go off the scale. Which leads players to form an alliance to destroy Ermor, time and time again. Also it soon becomes 'unfun' to play as you after move hordes of chaff around every turn and the bigger your empire the worse it gets.

Yea... you NEED those extra points in MP for LA Ermor. I was able to make a decent triple bless pretender, even though ermor's sacred troops are rather rare/expensive (didn't feel like going the SC way).

[Archonsod]

TexasHawk said:
Beyond priests and holy items, it just seems to me that LA Ermor is pretty much unstoppable played properly.

Most nations are unstoppable if played properly

The big problem with Ermor is that it's larger weaknesses are both incredibly hard to cover as Ermor, and easy to exploit for anyone going against Ermor. I tend to find that Ermor is one of those armies which encourage you to think outside the box - do what everyone expects and you'll be taken apart quite swiftly.