ERMOR newbye questions

[Gurthang]

Hi there, I would like to ask couple questions concerning Ermor.

First off, is there any guide detailing possible strategies/advantages/drawbacks?

Secondly, I would like to understand whether the Reanimate command works better in provinces with a high magic scale and/or where a battle has been recently fought (and so there is an abundance of corpses). If that is not so, why should Ermor care to slay as many enemies as possible, as detailed on the manual?

Thanks in advance... truly an impressive game!

[sansanjuan]

Originally Posted by Gurthang

Hi there, I would like to ask couple questions concerning Ermor.

First off, is there any guide detailing possible strategies/advantages/drawbacks?

Secondly, I would like to understand whether the Reanimate command works better in provinces with a high magic scale and/or where a battle has been recently fought (and so there is an abundance of corpses). If that is not so, why should Ermor care to slay as many enemies as possible, as detailed on the manual?

Thanks in advance... truly an impressive game!

G,
I suggest you peruse the wildly popular strategy page (below) for Ermor strategy and tactics.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=38122

I will defer the other question to others. The slay enemies may be flavor text as far as reanimating... though there are other death spells that will use the post battle province corpses for cheap chaff.
-ssj

[Tecnócrata]

As long as there are unburied corpses, you'll rise better soulless (with weapons and rusty armor, opposed to bare-handed zombies). But to get the better longdead, you have to build Ermorian fortresses.

[Kobal2]

I don't think magic scales affect Reanimate, only the reanimator's priestly level. Undead priests are also slightly better at reanimating (they count as having +1 Holy level for the purpose of determining what kind of undead they can raise).

The only way dominion affects Reanimate is that you get 15% chance per candle to raise an additional unit, and that bonus doesn't apply to the beefier reanimations, like Tomb Wyrms or Lictors.

Corpses in the province only affects the Reanimate Soulless order and a handful of soulless-generating spells.
Ghouls, Longdead, Longdead Horsemen, Lictors will all be produced at the same rate no matter how many corpses there are or aren't in the province. OTOH, Reanimate Soulless will produce up to 4 times as many individual undead than them, corpses providing. Those soul less will also likely come with some equipment, or be of the type that produced the corpses in the first place (for example, fight Atlantis and you might get atlantean zombies in coral armour)
Without corpses, Reanimate Soulless is worse than Reanimate Longdead in most respects.

The same is true of the battle spells Animate Dead / Animate Skeletons BTW: Animate Skeletons are consistent, whereas Animate Dead will get better once soldiers have begun dying on either side (but only live ones - undead or constructs don't produce corpses).

More thorough analysis here.