La Marignon research strategy against Ermor

[K]

It's be helpful to hear what kind of pretender you are using.

Otherwise:

Originally Posted by Micah

The ultimate anti-Ermor spell for Marignon is undoubtedly fire storm, and the matrix idea here would work wonderfully, since you should have enough gems together at that point to forge 4 of them. F3 + 1 level from communion + phoenix power will do you. Toss a couple of fire fends on your men-at-arms if you don't have anything better and watch Ermor burn. The problem here is that Ermor can probably drop BoT by the time you get it, and then you have no mages anymore, which is a problem when you're trying to cast spells.

Construction seems like a bad choice, since I have no idea how you'd be able to afford the kind of hardware that's being discussed if you ran straight for construction, especially with default LA site settings. As a research choice down the line though it's certainly a valuable addition to your arsenal.

That seems strange advice considering that Fire Storm is Research level 7 and costs five gems per casting. By definition, if you can afford to cast it in a war with multiple battles you have enough gems to build the items I mentioned. Even Flaming Arrows is a fire gem per casting so this is another gem intensive tactic; you only get F3's who will either need to spend two gems to get Flaming Arrows or will cast Phoenix Power and probably blow an extra gem on that because of the dumb AI, so to be on the safe side you are blowing two gems per battle.

Evo4 is probably your best bet for quick offensive magic if you are pessimistic about finding gems since Holy Fire is made to kill undead and it scales when boosted, but for a mid-game strategy I'd find ways to boost Holy and Fire, and that only works through Con.

Consider Blood as well. Not only is that an alternate way to get into a Communion, but Hell Power is a great way to go out if you have a diseased old mage who won't last anyway. Remember to keep chaff on guard commander since the Horrors pop in battle to kill him after he casts it. Also, Reinvigoration is a Blood spell that spreads though Communions, so it's an excellent way to keep fatigue down for your slaves(but hard to script).

Originally Posted by Micah

Giving a priest a crystal shield with 8! spellcasting encumbrance is generally not a good plan. Crystal shields are best used to bump a mage dropping a big enchantment, not one that's casting 0-fatigue spells every round. I can't speak to the communion idea, but if it lets you spam boosted banishes for free using the last caster in the order as the communion master that's pretty badass. I'm still at a loss as to how you'd afford that many matrices, but still, badass if you can manage it. Flambeaus are an excellent use for any extra F gems you have, no doubt about it.

The important thing to remember is that you only need one Master Matrix per H3/F1 and then you can have your Astral mages like Navigators fill up the slave slots (or the Blood 1 guys you get, if you don't mind the blood slave upkeep).

Also, a Crystal Shield is high spellcasting encumberance, but the difference between a H6 and a H7 when casting Banishment is more than the mere +1 Penetration you get from the extra path level (of course, every two paths above the min to cast is +1 penetration, so this is a sweet spot since Banishment is H1). The extra area and damage more than make up for the fact that you won't be in the battle that long, and since you are in a Communion anyway the fatigue gets passed around (I have an little test game where a mage with spellcasting encumberance 18 and Reinvig 2 ends up with only 23 fatigue by the end of the battle after spamming Banishment the whole combat). H7 clears whole chunks of the battlefield while H3s just kill a few units and damage the rest.

[chrispedersen]

The good news for marignon is that in the his high level priests have spell paths - so you aren't precluded from using a communion to turn.

[Micah]

K, I wasn't saying to skip construction, just that I'd skip it as the FIRST research target. You're right, there are a lot of good items to be had there, I was just guessing that you'd get a lot more use out of it once your gem income had time to mature. 2 gems per battle for FA is 5 major battles on turn 10, which is plenty, just with cap income, and leaves you with 3/4ths of your gems, vs 4 eyes of the void with only half your gems left (6 if you alch all of your gems). The other benefit from FA is you can plan for it ahead of time by sending out a mage with your xbow army, put some gems on a scout and put it into play immediately when the research is hit, whereas eye spam requires a turn of forging once the research is done, and then getting all of your priests to a lab (or holding still for a turn and spending 500g to build one) to get their eyes poked out.

Fire storm is the first late game tactic you shoot for, I didn't mean to imply that it was a good idea to research straight up to it, as it's far too much research. My research path would probably be enchant 4 > conj3/evo4/cons4 in circumstance-determined order > evo 7. The whole reason I was assuming that you had the gems to power it is because it's a later-game tactic when your gem income should be a lot more healthy.

I didn't realize that communions also distributed the master's spellcasting encumbrance, thanks for pointing that out. That's a good catch and makes a shield a viable option. Still spendy at 25 gems, but if you've got the gems to burn it's probably worth slapping on. (I admit I know next to nothing about communions, I never bother with them)

[hunt11]

Also keep his domain out of your empire or else he will starve you to death, and try to forge as many supply giving items as possible so that you can take the fight to him without losing all of your men to starvation. How far are you into the game anyway, because that would dictate what he will be chucking at you as well.