HELP: Ermor, Broken Empire (Middle Age)

[Nerfix]

You can also use Antimagic, the Astral 3 spell to further protect your undead units.

[efelle]

Don't forget the sacred troop : vestales (undead and ethereal) and lictors (living ones), there are pretty cheap and quick to gather in your capital at the beginning.

Vestales need Unholy blessing and lictors blessing.

[Nerfix]

Vestals are wonderful. Especially with Astral 9/Death 9 bless.

[Morkilus]

I haven't had the opportunity to try BE Ermor in Dom3 yet, but I was a big fan in Dom2. I second most of these suggestions (I'm a little unimpressed with the Vestals, though) but would add that Ghouls (from the reanimate spell) make great fodder/arrow catchers while your javelin troops clean up. Your cheaper mages can command the ghouls while they cast Nether Darts or various Astral battlefield magic. This tactic might be a little less useful now that temples are so expensive, though. I liked depopulating unproductive provinces with a half-dozen cheap priests and using the ghouls to take down the easier indie provinces. I'll check back here in this thread to see how this works in Dom3...

[Saxon]

Anyone got any suggestions? Not like I am fishing for help in my first MP game or anything...

[Shovah32]

Communions. With them even your lowly mages can cast some great spells. A horde of longdead backed by darkness and the power of the unholy sepulchre spell(+4 attack and increased movement) should almost never miss regular troops, will rarely get him, and can generally do well.
Communions are pretty essential since the best you can get out of your capitol is D1S1, and while that is nice, it just gets so much better later on.

I keep most of my Grand Thaumaturgs for ritual casting, teleporting(they can take out SCs that aren't expecting them) and leading large armies. My regular thaumaturgs do most of the heavy lifting by reanimating, casting most of my battlefield spells and leading smaller armies/raiding forces which can replenish their numbers via reanimation.

For the early game, blessed Shadow Vestals(even with the price increase they got a while back) are nice. W9S9 seems to be very popular, but my personal preferance is F9S9(on an imprisoned oracle). I find F9 gives more magical diversity(you already have water) even if it isn't a great path, and the F9 really ups their killing power - but either bless is nice.
Even without a bless(if you don't take one, you must take earth magic on your pretender, because its great) you can do well. Reanimated and buffed undead, dether bolts and of course those very tough Legionaires(back with archers. You wont suffer from friendly fire) can easily carry you through the early game against many threats.

Try to expand into earth magic as soon as you can(Ferrus the Iron wizard/Indy Earth Mages+Troll Kings Court was the easiest way I could get to E4 and above without rings or tartarians). Its a very powerful path, particularly for your nation(army of lead on a large army of chaff undead makes them insanely tough, particularly with darkness up) and waiting until you GoR tartarians to get it isn't much fun.

Some battle spells to use with communions:
Darkness: A hugely important 'buff' for your undead only/mostly undead armies. By reducing the enemies attack and precision your greatly improve your troops survivability(and with longdead horsemens naturally high defense they become incredibly powerful in melee) and by reducing the enemies defense you make them much more vunerable.

Power of the Unholy Sepulchre(strong version): Gives all your undead units +4 attack and action points. Combined with darkness they should almost never miss(even units like W9 vans become fairly easy to hit).

Rigor Mortis: Just to make the battle a little easier for your undead troops. Wears out the enemy quite quickly.

Antimagic/Protection of the Unholy Sepulchre: Both boost MR but don't(to my knowledge) stack. Protection of the Unholy Sepulchre is easily resisted, so several castings are usually needed for complete coverage - but it is lower fatigue and costs no gems.

Will of the Fates: A great buff. Gives all of your units luck, making them last must longer in battle.

Soul Drain: Very nice. A great help if you can't rely on your slaves to stick around as it sorts out the casters fatigue problems.

Soul Vortex: A buff for the caster and his slaves. Surround them with some living chaff and they will continually have their fatigue lowered, allowing you to cast high fatigue spells.

Master Enslave: Pretty much requiring a Grand Thaumaturg, preferably loading with items including penetration boosters, this spell is worth it. You can steal enemy armies with this spell - what more do you need to know?

Nether Darts: A great battle spell. Castable by all your mages even without a communion, but much better with one. When the mages (astral)magic level is boosted, the number of darts(base 15), the damage each dart does(base 15), and the penetration bonus all get increased. This should be a staple spell for you, and can even feeblemind unlucky SCs. Unfortunately, it can be blocked by shields in the same way as arrows and is MR negates, and that means you have to resort to its little brother.

Nether Bolt: A lesser version of Nether Narts. Better precision, range and base damage(20) and it can't be stopped by shields, but its only AoE 1 and MR negates. A very handy early game spell for your thaumaturg-led raiding forces.

Shadow Blast: Sort of like Nether Bolt on steroids. This requires a death gem, atleast D2 magic and is high fatigue. For that the spell gives you an AoE of 7+ and a damage of 20+(MR negates). Communion a few thaumaturgs up to D4-5(or grand thaumaturgs up to D6-7) and watch the carnage - add penetration boosters for added effect. Hitting and killing huge portions of the enemy army with enough damage per hit to take out giants, this spell is a monster.

Terror: A very handy spell against regular troops, this spell works best with darkness. Regular longdead and soulless lack killing power, so this spell helps to win battles. The morale penalty from darkness, the morale check from being hit(reduced defense from darkness means enemy will get hit) and the hugely reduced morale from a high level casting of terror(or several, depending on the number of masters) will rout most enemies quickly.

Drain Life: The monster killer. 100 Precision and 14+ base damage(D4 mage) that is completely unresistable by the majority of units make this a great SC killer(remember the teleporting grand thaumaturgs I mentioned earlier? Get a few up to D4 and let them take out an enemy SC while he's still buffing). For the few SCs that are immune to this spell, you can resort to spamming either Nether Darts or Desintigrate(100 precision, death on a failed MR check, only needs D2).

There are more, but I have to go now. Hope this helps for now.