Newbie enjoying undead, looking for advice

[Aleph]

Would you recommend the turmoil/luck/growth 3 combo over order 3 for races that have reanimators? I generally do pretty well against indeps with a screen of soulless backed up by missle troops (and, in the case of MA Ermor, Vestals). I'm assuming that the reason Order 3 is better in the early game is in aiding early conquest, but that's precisely why I like playing with reanimators. Or is it more to do with needing to throw out multiple fortresses in the same time period?

On a related note - would you recommend Luck 3 as an addition to LA Ermor's weaponized Turmoil/Cold/Death/Sloth 3 dominion? I would think the free gems and free battle fodder would be good pickups for them, given their almost purely magical economy, but some small part of me likes the totally hostile to others approach of the Ermorian domain.

On a totally unrelated note - does Twiceborn cure afflictions and old age? I'm thinking of using LA Ermor with a Crone, tossing twiceborn on her, and then burning her out with a fever fetish, but the whole point is to get a decent combat pretender on the sly and if she's perm-crippled it's not worth it.

[Agrajag]

Aleph said:
1) Would you recommend the turmoil/luck/growth 3 combo over order 3 for races that have reanimators? I generally do pretty well against indeps with a screen of soulless backed up by missle troops (and, in the case of MA Ermor, Vestals). I'm assuming that the reason Order 3 is better in the early game is in aiding early conquest, but that's precisely why I like playing with reanimators. Or is it more to do with needing to throw out multiple fortresses in the same time period?

2) On a related note - would you recommend Luck 3 as an addition to LA Ermor's weaponized Turmoil/Cold/Death/Sloth 3 dominion? I would think the free gems and free battle fodder would be good pickups for them, given their almost purely magical economy, but some small part of me likes the totally hostile to others approach of the Ermorian domain.

3) On a totally unrelated note - does Twiceborn cure afflictions and old age? I'm thinking of using LA Ermor with a Crone, tossing twiceborn on her, and then burning her out with a fever fetish, but the whole point is to get a decent combat pretender on the sly and if she's perm-crippled it's not worth it.

1) Generally, if you can get by without the extra gold early on, then Turmoil/Luck/Growth is the superior alternative.
I think Reanimtors are a good example of when you can probably get by with less gold early on. Having good early summons (like Magma Children) to replace the troops the extra gold would've got you (the extra gems from events can actually help funding those summons), is another case where you can skip the gold.
I'd also reccomend it (though less strongly) for nations with mainly heavy infantry - the resources are a stronger limit on early strength, and the free militia you may get can work instead of the light infantry you don't have (though don't always need).
2) LA Ermor is always Turmoil/Cold/Death/Sloth/Luck 3 for me, sometime I take magic for research or drain for MR, but the rest are always the same.
You should bear in mind that positive dominion effects from your dominion don't positively affect enemies, so luck-0 and luck-3 are just as destructive to the enemy. Furthermore, taking Turmoil-3 Misfortune-3 is suicide, so I don't think there's much of an alternative to Luck-3.
Other reasons for Luck-3 include:
Free gems are awesome for a nation that uses gems as its currency.
Free money events are great, since you still need gold for fotresses and temples and labs (which aside from the lab all provide improved freespawns).
Free fortress/mine events are pretty nice too since cash is hard to come by.
Another good reason is that with Death-3, you can get the "Uber rich person died in your country and you got all his stuff" event, so LUCK LUCK LUCK!
3) IIRC it doesn't, but I'm not 100% sure, been a while since I last used it, and to pay attention to afflictions? :O
It makes sense if the afflictions remain, just like an immortal keeps afflictions after rebirth (though they also have the ability to cure those over time.)

EDIT: One final note - bear in mind that Turmoil-3,Luck-3,Growth-3 is risky in MP (compared to Order-3), since the extra income from Luck isn't guaranteed, but also since there's (IIRC. I didn't make the calculations) a bigger chance of suffering a fataly bad event (like losing a building early on, or an unrest event on turn-2), though as the game progresses the bad events turn from fatal, to a mildly annoying statistic, far outweighed by the good events from Luck-3)

EDIT2: Fixed some stuff :X
Also, forgot to say "2^aleph" is stronger than you are (even though you kick aleph0's *** )

[Shovah32]

For LA ermor, imo, turmoil3 sloth3 cold3 death3 luck3 magic1 is the way to go. Plenty of points for a fairly versatile, high dominion, awake lich queen, good research and lots of luck(although you need to kill the militia asap due to upkeep)

[Agrajag]

Shovah32 said:
(although you need to kill the militia asap due to upkeep)

Its much funnier to use them to pillage the province they are in to 0 population and watch them starve
(Though I usually just send a half zillion troops led by 1/50 zillion freespawn commanders to pillage the province to supplylessness)

[Aleph]

Shovah - didn't catch the upkeep with the militia. I have a bunch running around, will have to stab them asap. Wish I could Imprint those tossers into something useful, but I suppose I could suicide charge them at a moderate enemy and pick up the corpses afterwards.

Agrajag - I don't get the other aleph references, but thanks for your advice. Right now I'm playing LA Ermor with the scales you recommended and it's going a lot easier. And in a nice surprise (for me at least, I'm sure it's old hat to everyone else), in my other game of LA R'lyeh, at domain 6 or less and Growth 3 has positive population growth, while around 7 it's balanced or just teetering on a very slow decline (and given how many prophets I have I could probably have kept it at 6 and still worked some decent domain expansion if I'd known that was the break point). I'm playing starting Domain 5, Turmoil 3 / Luck 3 / Growth 3 / Magic 1 / Sloth 2 / Cold 3 (I think I recall someone saying that Cold/Heat have no effect underwater) and having a blast. I just wish more spells worked underwater.

[Agrajag]

Aleph said:
Agrajag - I don't get the other aleph references, but thanks for your advice.

I'm glad you're having fun, and that my advice is helpful
As for the Aleph references: Aleph0, Aleph and 2^Aleph are (in very simplistic terms) "orders" of infinity.
AFAIK, They are called so for the Aleph right at the beginning of "einsof".

[Sorlakind]

Ah and my inaccessible cardinal beta beats all your alephs together and more!

[Shovah32]

Another note aleph: You should, if at all possible, get your dominion up to lvl 9 or 10 with ever LA ermor pretender you make.

[Aleph]

My current LA Ermor leader of choice is a Lich Queen with 10 Dominion and excellent Astral and Death magic. I'm sure there are more optional mixes of elements for a combat pretender, but astral and death do fine for me, and I really like Immortality with such a high dominion.

[Shovah32]

Yes, thats a nice build. One thing i would suggest is try to get some other paths in there(specifically elemental magic but maybe nature too) mostly for forging items to kit out SC's and thugs.