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Guide for MA Ermor; Work In Process (TACTICS)
Topic Started: Feb 22 2017, 06:19 AM (5,398 Views)
Aird14
Member Avatar
Witch Hunter
Hi guys, recently I had for some time thought about writing a guide for Ermor, because this is a first attempt and I'm pretty much an amateur, I really hope you can help me with feedback (I want this guide to be helpful for many people as posible, more for newcomers that want to try Ermor).

Also be patient if I forgot some basic stuff, either case is implied, I just forgot or never had the chance of using it myself (I never recommend thinks that I never used before), also it's going to be a work in process.



--Disclaimer--
This guide is NOT going to be a PRO material so if you are looking for material for serious gameplay well I'm letting you down, some of the "Stuff" if not nearly all of I do is not the recommended by many (Not having an awake pretender), so anything you don't like you can ignore it and use other stuff or none. My general idea with this is to make an easy to understand, complete guide for Ermor's newcomers (Myself had a problem using Ermor before seeing Devnada https://devnada.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/dr...a-introduction/).


If you have questions about my build feel free to ask me by message or in this post, I will try to pay attention to all the comments, link below h

About Ermor
Ermor is a roman nation made of zombies, reanimated skeletons, some shadows and spirits. Some are death versions of a mix of Sceleria, EA Ermor and Pythium. In my opinion Ermor is one of the main Nations of this game being the big human empire of EA, also it has a big relation with a good part of the MA nations: It conquer and then founded Ulm, Marignon and Pythium, his counterpart is Sceleria, and it has some influence from C'tis.

Now with the guide (Consider some parts are my personal opinions not total facts, not the best way to play Ermor,maybe you have better tactics, better pretenders so feel free to share), hope you like it:

Overview
Playing with Ermor you have a totally diferent kind of game, you have more need for gems and dominion instead of getting more income and resources, you can't recruit units as normal, you have to summon some commanders and units, the rest appear as freespawn and most of the time, if not almost all the time you are going to be hated. Because of your swarming chaft and your dominion's scales. Also, you will hate micromanagement.

---Tip #1 Diplomacy---
All the players will curse being your neighbor, being next to you makes almost certain they are not going to win. So all your neighbors will fall in two categories: the ones that will attack you until oblivion and the ones that prefer to ignore you. It's your priority to make them ignore you.--


So bright side:
+All of your units are undead (except for your pretender if you don't choose an undead chasis)
+Your units still have old age, but is not a factor, except for mages, priest and SC.
+Your units don't eat, so ignore supplies.
+Your units being undead have darkvision or are unnafected by
+Your units don't have salary (HR & management dream for a workforce indeed).
+Your units appears for free in all of your provinces depending on your dominion over each province (Most of the time many types of longdead, soulless), in other cases ghouls appears if the province has population to consume, and if you build a fortress you get longdead legionnaires (Velites, triarius) and your sacred unit theKnights.
+You get also free commanders, mound kings on any provinces and Censors in forts.
+Because most of your units are mindless, they can't rout, and the rest of your units have 15+ morale.
+Most units have move 3, so you have a lot of mobility on the map.
+Most units can enter underwater.

Bad points:
-Your units are undead so they die with dust to dust, purgatory, banishment, and a ton of spells that Marignon has, also undead command and mastery, most paths and schools of magic have a way to deal with undead units.
-Most undead have vulnerability to fire.
-Your mindless units(90% of them), instead of routing they will disappear.
-You can't recruit units as normal, only indies, the rest of your units(No free-ones) need reanimation by priest and summoning with gems.


Now we talk about units:

Pretender & Scales

Scales:
MA Ermor is the exception to a lot of rules about scales.

Order/Turmoil: You want gold so Order should be the option...but no your populations is going to die. Turmoil 3 is the choice.

Production/Sloth: You don't recruit units so Sloth 3.

Cold/Hot: You can go "3" in hot or cold, but some undead have cold auras, also your units are vulnerable to fire so Cold 3 is the way(Not the rule).

Growth/Death: Death 3, not amount of growth will save your population, better get the points of death instead.

Luck/Misfortune: Luck 3, you will need all the luck as possible, to get more gems and some gold.

Magic/Drain: A tricky one, in one hand you want better research, in the other more magic resistance should be better to resist spells. I prefer to go for Drain 1-2(1 if possible, 3 is a suicide you will lose gems x_x).

Dominion: A general rule is to take at least 6-7, in Ermor case is either 9 or 10 no less, dominion is fundamental for Ermor, the less dominion you have the less units (And believe me if you don't have sacred you want to outnumber your enemies by 5 to 10 times).

--Disclaimer---
To avoid repeting the same part over and over, yes is important to have at least a D3 mage in Ermor from the first turn. When I choose a dormant or imprisoned pretender I will empower my only mage as soon as possible and summon more mages ASAP, still is semi-viable to do that.---


I have three prefered chasis (V 4.29):
As a thumb rule: T3S3D3L3, others scales can be H3 or C3, Magico from M3 to D2, never take Drain 3.
Ermor pretenderif awake needs at leat D3 magic, D5 recommendes.

Mother of monsters:
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She gives birth to some monstrous units (Crossbreeding spawn), they are good because neither she or her child are undead(Wildcards). I prefer her because she has three magic paths and she is mobile you are not going to use her blood patch, unless you bloodhunt in the border of your lands.

Awake
Dominion 9
Scales T3S3C3D3L3D2
Magic N9B3D9 (I will talk about blessings in the sacred units part)
She can help with early expansion, she has access to most of the spells you need, being awake you can summon mages and commanders from turn 1.

Dormant
Dominion 9
Scales T3S3C3D3L3D2
Magic N9B9D6
Not as useful herself until she decides is time to wake up. Improvement is the B9 Bless.

Imprisoned
Dominion 10
Scales T3S3C3D3L3D2
Magic D8N9B9
Pretty much the same as above you have a better bless.

Lich Queen
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I used to like Master lich over her (more hp), but she is cheaper with worse stats. But more options in my opinion (if you can recommend Master Lich designs be welcomed).

Awake
Dominion 9
Scales T3S3C3D3L3D2
Magic D9N9 or D9B9 (Depends your preference)
She is awake, more close to the theme of undead units that mother of monsters, also she is immortal so you can use her freely without worrying about her in your dominion.

Demilich
Posted Image
Awake
Dominion 9
Scales T3S3C3D3L3M1
Magic D9N9
Good researcher, you can use him to get your mages from turn 1, he is immortal, invulnerable, pierce and slash resistant (So you need magic ot magic weapons to hurt him). Sadly he can't move.

Imprisoned
Dominion 9
Scales T3S3C3D3L3D2
D9N9W9 OR D9N9B9
This guy pays all the waiting, the suffering in the first turn with any of those blesses.

Experimental Design
Blood Fountain
Posted Image
Imprisoned
Dom8 T3S3C3D3L2D2
W9N9B9
Currently I'm testing this design (either one good idea or my worst idea ever), general idea is because is already imprisoned you are not going to use this pretender for summoning mages. Also Burden of Time and some Death spells can be cast by empowered Dusk Elders.

Results
Less events so I received less gold and gems. No use for those magic paths except some spells( mostly a researcher).
Sacred inflict more casualties, but they died in greater numbers.

Other options are:
Titan of Serpents and medicine(DM paths),Master Lich and Ghost King or commanders with Death magic (You want at least D5 in your pretender).

Coming Soon

Regular Commanders

Black Servant
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Your cheap option for a scout useful to explore both land and water. Give him a Bane Venom Charm to disease units and kill population.

Mound King
Posted ImagePosted Image
This guy is going to be your most common commander, is not good enough to thug. Use him to ferry troops to provinces and carry units to battle. Main advantage, they are totally expendable and can go underwater.

Censor
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They are good enough to give them some items. They can carry more troops than Mound kings and you are going to use them to build temples. Sadly they can't go underwater. Also is sacred.

Both can be replaced by a revenant.

Spectator D2
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Depending of which build you choose this can be your main mage, a big plus is that they are ethereal, this guy is better used to scout and site search, he can cast some useful spells like shadow bolt, summon skeletons or undead, dark knowledge, invulnerability?
Summon them if you lack gems for Dusk Elders.

Dusk Elders D3F1S1+1FEWDAS
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Your main mage if you have he has a good mix of paths and a good variety of spells. You can improve them with skull staff and skull on fire.
So in some conditions you can have up to F4(F2 Dusk Elder+Skull on fire+ phoenix power),D5(D4 Elder +skull staff), W2(W1+water bracelet)
Main Mage
Conjuration Caster

Acolyte H1
Posted Image
Your low level priest, only useful to summon longdeads(your dominion do that for you already), don't summon them, save the gems for a better priest or make a censor/spectator/revenant. Unless you need a priest for a bless in a big hurry and don't have gems.

Bishop of Eldregate H2
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Your middle level priest, your can give him the role to make ghouls and bless a squad of sacreds.

Arch Bishop of Eldregate H3
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Your high priest this commander will be the key for your bless build, he can bless your entire army, his second use is to summon Lictor.

Tip #2, Ghouls & Priest® priest if posible will be reanimating ghouls, to deplete lands and get the max amout of ghouls per province (each ghoul consume population per turn).


Heroes
Caractor
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The Arch Censor, an upgraped version of the censor, you can thug him or making him your prophet, in my opinion is the worst of the trio.

Putrescastor D4F2S3
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An upgraped version of your a Dusk Elder, putrescastor is useful to cast some spells or to site search. You can empower him so he is the one casting BoT or many nasty spells like plague, leprosy.

Ettimu D3H2
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I will dare to say he is your strongest unit to use as a thug, he is immortal, ethereal so you need some armor or equipment to make him even stronger. Also is your second option to invade underwater and bless sacreds.

Alcastos The Forgotten King H3
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Alcastor is a bless for your army, first, another H3 unit is always welcomed, and second, one weakness of the tribless Ermor is lacking priest to go underwater Alcastos solves that problem, feel free to invade underwater provinces with your sacreds.

Guest Commanders
Revenant D1
Posted Image
Transport troops
Is a summoned commander you need Ench4 D2 & 9 Death gems to summon him. He can command 110 undead units and summon more by himself, as a plus he can go underwater. It can be used for research.

Spectral Mage D1+2EWSD
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An expensive version of spectator?, kind of this guy opens your spell options to W2(Rain or W3 summon water power(UW only) ) and E2(Summon Earthpower so E3 spells like Iron bane).

Wraith Lord
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A better SC than Censor, he can go underwater.

Mound fiend D3 H2
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A summoned mix of mage and priest. It's kind of expensive. Still he has benefits of both dusk elders being ethereal and benefits of bishops being sacred.

Harvester of Sorrows
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Use them as spies and to deplete population in any provinces, as a bonus they give disease to some units.

Lich D4
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Even if you have dusk elders, this guy can be a viable options because he is immortal. Magical SC material.

Ancient Entity
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Your anti-chaft material, this guy is the blob, anything he kills returns him some health, so throw him to some indies(the ones that appear as events) or really weak units.

Units
Longdead
Posted ImagePosted ImagePosted Image
Your freespawn, it comes in 3 sword variery, 2 lance versions. He is your most common unit in lands without forts, they appear in high numbers and die in high numbers, best use them to overwhelm giant units or to absorb evocations.
Longdead horsement is the best of them, his best use is to flank the enemy.

Souless
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Your standard zombie, nothing special, you can consider him the second most common unit after the londead. Same use to absorb spells. The difference he is indiciplined.

Ghouls
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This unit is your best(Or second best) chaft unit, as I told you before you will try to make more ghouls as posible, because they are your most common no mindless unit(appart from commanders and lictors). They have in my opinion 4 uses:
1) Being able to think means they count as 1 instead of the .1 of your other mindless units, they are golden to avoid your forts to be stormed.
2)As bodyguards/mind blast shield/to avoid commander to rout, when you field them you want them in the back row in case of flying units or to absorb mindblast attacks.
3)To clean provinces(ghouls deplete population, raid with them to accelerate the process).
4)Having double hp if you compare to longdead they will attract banishment.

Sadly, Ghouls came in limited amounts, when you deplete your population they stop appearing.

Longdead legionnaire
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It's your chaft from fort provinces, they have better status than the regular undead and they throw javelins.

Longdead triarius
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Your other chaft from forts, I believe they have repel.

Sacred Units

First we are going to talk about bless options to compare their effects.

D9N9

Benefits:
Death weapons, True regeneration, Undying +10 & +8 HP

Explanation:
Even if it appears weird nature and death can mix, undying has a similar effect to more hp, they are trated like negative numbers (Any non-undead unit in negative numbers dies, undead units recover as normal) so for an undead unit is a bonus of 18HP. You get a magical attack in your units that diseases any unit that survives the fight and regeneration to extent your unit life.

Knight of Unholy Sepulchre
HP6+8HP+10 undying=24HP with a regeneration of 2HP(10% Regeneration based on Max HP).

Lictor
HP20+8HP+10 undying=38HP with regeneration of 3HP.


D9N9B9

Benefits:
Blood vengeance(BV), Death weapons, True regeneration, +4 Strength, Undying +10 & +8 HP.

Explanation:
Same as the other one with the benefit of blood vengeance, having an army of knight being hit by spells can trigger BV, because of high magic resistance this doesn't happen so much, here you make up this with numbers to have better chance to activate it, the only way to avoid BV is with trampling. Also the strength bonus is nice to do more damage. This Bless is better for Lictors than Knights.

Knight of Unholy Sepulchre
HP6+8HP+10 undying=24HP with a regeneration of 2HP(10% Regeneration based on Max HP).
Strength 11+4=15 +2 damage death weapons

Lictor
HP20+8HP+10 undying=38HP with regeneration of 3HP.
Strength 16+4=20 +2 damage death weapons

D9N9W9

Benefits:
Quickness, Death weapons, True regeneration, +4 Defense, Undying +10 & +8 HP.

Explanation:
This bless is a beast, first hand I have used this bless, and believe is impresive. Water is good for offensive/survival, with quickness they gain 50% more actions and movement, that means they get to the enemy pretty quickly. Defense bonus helps to improve survival by avoiding attacks.


Knight of Unholy Sepulchre
HP6+8HP+10 undying=24HP with a regeneration of 2HP(10% Regeneration based on Max HP).
Strength 11 +2 damage death weapons

Lictor
HP20+8HP+10 undying=38HP with regeneration of 3HP.
Defense 10+4=14
Strength 16 +2 damage death weapons

Now the sacred units:

Knight of the Unholy Sepulchre
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Your first sacred to use, they appear randomly in forts, 1-2 per turn in high dominion fort provinces. They can be used for rear attacks and flaking. Even without a bless they work, either case use them with a bless.


Lictor
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Your harder/more controlable unit to get. Lictors are summoned with three spells Revive Lictor (1 unit for 3 gems), Lictorian Guard (5 units for 10 gems), Lictorian Legion (25 units for 35 gems), the most expensive being the best in number of lictors per gem ratio. Lictors are tough as nail with some bless like N they are nightmares. They can be your front troops, survive being hit and banishment. They have a cold aure as a bonus so they are a reason to go for Cold3.

Wailing Lady
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Your most expensive sacred. She is summoned with: Revive Wailing Lady (1 unit for 15 gems), Lamentation (5 unit for 50 gems) & Wailing Lady (14 unit for 66 gems). Because of high cost (same cost as 3 censors, almost 2 revenants, 1 spectator or almost one bishop), I prefer to ignore them. Still their potential is ther wail a terror attack, this unit is suppose not to kill units but their moral.

Extra units:

Corpse Candle
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Summoned by corpse candle spell(Conj5 D2F1) for 1 Dgem, they attack with decay, I use them to distract the enemy, difficult to hit by size.

Dispossessed Spirit
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Your ghoul replacement, they are summomed by spirit mastery (Conj4 D1). Not being mindless and amphibian, they are an asset against Rlyeh. Sadly they are undisciplined.

Wight
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Mostly use them as bodyguards is easier to get Lictors instead of them, still they have better equipment.

Tactics

Research Options
Most of this spells are recommended options in general.
I tried to include the ones that appear to be useful, the majority can be cast with Spectators or Dusk Elders, some need use of empower to get to D4-5.
Also consider because of W1 and being able to enter underwater Dusk Elders can use W2 spells.

Conjuration
It's your first priority to get better summoned commanders, as a must you better get to 3, either case, I recommend research until 4-5.

1
Black Servant D2 Cost 5 death gems
Summons 1 Black Servant.

Wailing Lady D1? Cost 15 death gems
The most expensive creature in my opinion. If you really want her wait for Lamentation or Great Lamentation to get a better return for your gems.

3
Dark knowledge D1? Cost 4 death gems
Your search spell. Get it as soon as possible to avoid losing turns later to get more death gems income.

Lictorian Guard D2 Cost 15 death gems?
Gives you a group of # Lictors, because of the cost, I prefer to get Lictors via reanimation.

Revive Wights D3 20 death gems
You get 4 Wights, they are good units, but I prefer to save the gems for a Dusk Elder or an Arch Bishop.

Revive Bane D3
Gives you a bane commander, easier to thug than a Censor and can carry more troops with him. As a bonus he can con underwater.

4
Spirit Mastery D1 4 death gems
In my opinion is one of the spells than return more units per gems. You get even more if the level of the caster is greater. This spells is extremely good for defense, the spirits are not mindless so they count as normal in case of siege, also you can summon more during the siege.

5
Corpse candle 5
In battle spell, summons two corpses candles, that are hard to hit and hit back with decay.

Ghost Grip
Stop in place some units, they need a magic resistance roll to free themselves, pretty good against low groups.

Bane Lord??
Summons another commander

6
Hidden in Snow DW
It can be cast on mountains with cold scales, summons three commanders ADD COMMANDERS TO ROOSTER!

Lamentation

Ghost

Summon Spectral Mage D3 cost¿¿¿¿
You get one Spectral Mage, he gets more magic paths for you, W and E.

Lamia Queen ND
Summons a Lamia Queen NDB and lamias.

Streams from Hades


7
Catoblepas ND
Summons one catoblepas.

Summon Mound fiend D3 Cost 28 death gems
Summons one Moun Fiend, your mix between priest and mage, useful for expansion.

Harvester of Sorrows
Summons one Harvester of Sorrows, one unit that serves both as spy and to deplete provinces.

Wraith Lord D
Another SC material.

Great lamentation
Summons # walining ladies this is the version that returns more units per gem.

8
Well of Misery
This spell gives you 20 death gems per turn or in other words 1 Dusk Elder/2 Leprosy/ 1.5 Black Death/.

Lictorian Legion
Summons a group of Lictor.

9
Ancient Presence DW
Summons Ancient and anti-chaft unit.

Ghost Riders D
Summons a groups of longdead horseman led by a wraith lord.


Legion of wights
Summons 20 wights, best return of units per gem.

Tartarian gate
Summons one tartarian 9AFEWDS, treat them as protopretenders(They need gift of reason or divine name.to work)

Alteration
Here you get many spells useful to buff your troops or de-buff enemy troops. I recommend to get up to 5 or if posible the higher the better.

0
twist fate S1
Allows the unit to evade the first hit.

1
Distil Fire F1
Your easiest way to get more gold in exchange of fire gems.

Skeleton Body D1
Gives piercing resistant to the unit.

Charge Body
Any unit hitting the caster suffer an electrical hit.

Hand of Death
Gives the caster a melee attack that kills anything he touch, you want to combine this with ethereal body and invulnerabily.

2
Alchemical Transmutation E1
Same as distil gold but with earth gems instead.

Phantasmal warrior

Mirror Image


Ice shield

Armor of Achilles

Cheat Fate S

3
Luck 3

4
Temper flesh

Body EthereaL S1
Gives ethereal to some units.

Stygian Skin

Arouse Hunger D3 Cost 15 death gems
Summons a group of 15 ghouls to attack the province.

5
Invulnerability


Drain life


6
Soul vortex

Skeletal legion

Darkness

Blindness

7
Stygian Rain

8
Disintegrate

9
Utterdark

Evocation
Most of the spells in this section are used in battle, remember to look for different options depending on enemy's army composition.

1
Slime

Geyser

Water Strike W1 (UW)

3
Shadow Bolt D2

Arcane probing S1 Cost 3 astral gems

Magma Bolts F1E1

4
Bane Fire Dart

Bolt of Unlife

5
Shadow Blast D3 Cost1 death gem

Stellar Cascades S2

6
Blast of Unlife D3

Bane Fire

Wailing Winds

7
Cloud of Death

Wind of Death

8
Vortex of Unlife

Construction
Some spells and mostly equipment to improve your commanders

COMING SOON
2
4
6
8

Enchantment,
Your second brand of spells to summon more units by ritual or in battle.

1
Resist Magic

Animate Skeleton

Animate Dead

3
Astral Shield

Raise Skeletons

4
Behemoth DW

Raise Dead

5
Pale Riders

Horde of Skeleton

6
Rigor Mortis

Ermorian Legion

7
Carrion Reanimation

Leviathan

Ghost Ship Armada DW
One good plus of getting DW in your pretender, it raids coast provinces, it stays until dispeled or a lucky guy kills the captain.

8
Lichcraft D5 Cost 30 gems
Summons one lich

9
Fields of the Dead
Summons undead units

Thaurmatology
Your other highest priority, this branch of spells gives you the most hated Rituals in the game.

1
Decay D1
Ages an unit quickly, good for nasty heroes or mortal SC.

Frighten D1
Reduces the moral of one unit.

2
Steal Breath
Fatigues the target, good against SC to tire them quickly,

Mond Burn

4
Paralyze

Terror D2

Augury F2 Cost 4 fire gems
Use it to get more fire gems.

5
Control the Dead
Takes control of some undead enemies, can be resisted.

Leeching darkness5

Burden of time 50 death gems
All units age quicker than usual, even more in your dominion, there is a chance for some units to die of old age, if not they will start to get afflictions. Death scales are more prone to appear. Counters to this spells are Gift of Nature and Dispel. Please note that some nations are not affected greatly for this spell as usual(Check encubrance for Old age of some units).

6
Leprosy Cost 10 death gems
Disease some units in one province.

7
Plague

8
Black Death Cost 15 death gems
Kill half population of target province.

Not Awake Pretender/Triple Bless
First, how is posible to be Ermor and not use an awake pretender?, first some changes made from Dominions 3 to 4, your starting commanders in 3 were a censor and an acolyte that's why you needed D3 from the beginning. Now we start with a D2 Spectator and a Censor, you can do two things 1) wait 3 turns to empower your spectator to D3 or 2)Summon spectators and save gems until you can empower your spectator. Either scenario can be fixed if Ettimu or Putrecastror appears.

Early Game
You want to raid indy provinces as quick as posible, make your Censor your prophet and use your Spectator to summon more mages.
In your second turn you will have a mix of chaft like 30-50 (Depending of your initial dominion), plus 1-2 sacred knights.

As soon as you get enough money you will start to make forts(as a general rule you are going to build forts first then temples so you can protect them, labs are build only if the fort is in a important or you have a garrison of mages).

For research you want to start with Conjuration

As soon as you start summoning Dusk Elders you will want to make arch bishops, any big army needs an arch bishop.


Early Game
Instead if you choose an awake pretender with death magic you start summoning spectador/or wait and summon dusk elder.

Middle Game
Expansion

Fort expansion

Search for spells of the list

Late Game
Release big guns, burden of time, plague, black death.
High level summons


Squads
Be creative, because most of your units don't care for morale you can use up to 5 squads per commander, still avoid doing this with Lictors and ghouls they still can rout.

Formation
Remember to avoid getting all your units mixed, or your chaft getting in the way of your sacreds.

Ghouls
They have two roles as bodyguard and as special cannon foder. So they go on the center of your formation not in front lines or next to sacreds.

Cavalry and Knight of Unholy Sepulchre
They are better put in one flank with orders to attack rear (Hold and attack in case you have a H1-2 priest to bless the knights first), best case scenario they kill the commander/support units.

Lictor
They are can be at the front tanking damage and breaking the first line of the enemy, having D9N9 makes them durable, having W9 gives speed and a better chance to avoid hits and B9 returns damage towards the enemy.


Commanders
They are better put on your back row, unless they are SC, you want to kill them(Any commander can be worthy as a "ferry" unit instead).

Army Composition


Thanks to:
Devnada-Drama Mamahttps://devnada.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/dr...a-introduction/
Good reading and inspiration.
Storoschewoj, tiredofshadow, suppenit & arthurtuxedo
Some advices and ideas
Archal, Zenzi & Waywinkle
Being really tought oponents that made me re-think tactics to get better results :P
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LDiCesare
*Spicy* Crew
Thanks for writing such a guide.
A few remarks:

You say providence instead of province here and there. It's a bit disturbing.

In the minus category, you say:
"-Your units are vulnerable to holy weapons and fire.
-Your units are poor amphibian so they are not that good at water."
Well, they are not more vulnerable to fire than anyone else. As for holy weapons, I don't see what you mean. There are several anti-undead spells, but not so many weapons.
The fact that your skellies are poor amphibians is mostly irrelevant. They are chaff. The mages don't care for extra fatigue either. So, yes, in theory, it's bad, but in practice not so much. You'll win underwter fights by fatiguing out your enemies, not by killing them and certainly not by using staying power, but using sheer numbers. Anyhow, you're better off underwater than (almost?) all land nations of the era.

Pretender choice:
No dormant pretender. No imprisoned pretender. Ever. You want a high Death awake pretender. Don't even mention empowering or having a dormant pretender. In MP, if you do that, you're dead, ort you're playing against utter newbs or are usign a weird map or something. Just don't. The game itself tells you you should pick an awake pretender.
PICK AND AWAKE PRETENDER WITH HIGH DEATH.
That's the single most important thing to do when playing MA Ermor.
Srap all where you suggest taking dormant or imprisoned pretender. Agian, do that and you've lost the game.
The only benefits ofd a dormant or imprisoned pretender are:
- more paths, but, really, do you need high paths or a lot of them on your pretender? What for? You already have a lot with the tanked scales, particularly if you go drain
- bless: Ok, so your sacred units are going to make maybe 1/1000th of your armies, and you don't have sacred summons like Pythium angels or anything really worth blessing.
Losing 12 turns of research/site searching and mostly summoning mages and priests is definitely not worth it.
And Blood is really only good for the bless, which is not that useful in itself. Blood-hunting as MA Ermor is kinda difficult, for lack of people to bleed.

I'd much rather pick a pretender based on powerful globals I can cast (hmmm. vengedful waters?) rather than bless effects as Ermor. Also combat spells. What are you going to use your pretender for? Summoning other mages early on, so Death is in, fine. And then what? Globals? Site searching? Casting globals such as Burden of Time to make you more popular? Casting battlefield spells such as Fog Warriors or Army of Foo in order to have unkillable skeletons?

Research:
Conjuration is an early target but your go-to spell, for most of your mages, will be Enchantment and raise skeletons (and the better version at ench5) way before evo.
Also, do mention Darkness.
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suppenit
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*Spicy* Crew
Bless is a huge thing for Ermor. They get two free sacred dudes per turn per castle for dominion 10 in average, it is the core of their power. Pure sheer skeleton numbers are easily defeated by proper magic preparations (banishment, solar rays, fire elementals), but usage of B9N9(X9) sacred dudes - Lictors, Knights - make these preparations much more expensive. So imprisoned pretender is the way to go in my opinion.
aka olli!, bumpjack
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Morsigil
*Spicy* Crew
N9 is actually not the best bless for MA Ermor. The problem is that it boosts your sacred knight's HP above longdead, meaning that now they can be targeted by banishment and other evocs reliably. W9B9D9 is probably the best combo available for MA Ermor. True, N9 makes your lictors really tough, but they don't really need to be any tougher than they already are.
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Aird14
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Witch Hunter
Thanks guys for your opinions, in order:
LDiCesare
Yeah I slip with province, English is not my mother language, I will correct asap.

I thought they were vulnerable to fire because undead pretenders are(also in most settings undead are weak to fire). The other stuff yeah my bad, I will explain better or remove.

About the pretender, yeah, if we go to a metagame/pro setting,we are death(in this case extra death), still in casual or roleplay it can work, take a look at the last part of devnada. Also I won a noob/intermediate game with it. Also, I plan to explain better this stuff later.

P.D.
And don't understimate the numbers of sacred Ermor can get, each turn per fort you can get 1-2 knight, plus your Lictor production.

Suppenit
I totally agree with you, dormant options are just to have a middle ground option.

Morsigil
Believe me N9 is good not as good as with giants or high HP units, still it improves the durability of your troops. True regeneration+extra hp+undying is a lot of hp.
The banishment can be avoided with ghouls, also lictors with that bless can sustain some of those(also I use skirmish formation). I will add that later.

For last Lictors indeed are good, making them even better is good to improve their performance.

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LDiCesare
*Spicy* Crew
How do you perform early expansion, research, and getting more mages if you pick a dormant or imprisoned pretender? Having sacred elite troops for Ermor doesn't look good to me. There are few of them compared to eagle warriors but they require as much infrastructure to set up, and you have nothing to defend yourself with in the meantime.
You have to get lucky (Etimmu...) before you can start searching and getting gems to get more mages. Otherwise, you can recruit 1 mage per turn at the cost of depleting your whole D gems. You can also site search with spectators, but that's only one path at 2.
How are you going to defend against early aggression without an awake pretender, considering you'rethe most likely nation in the game to be on th receiving end of an early 2 vs 1?
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ben_sphynx
Tartarian
Tripple bless Lictors really are very good.

You can choose to sacrifice research by spending gems on (first empowering your D2 to D3, which is 45D gems, then) summoning Archbishops of Eldregate, who can summon one Lictor per turn.

Suppose you are getting 15D gems per turn from your capital. On turn 3, you can empower your d2 to d3 (After doing 3 turns of research). Over the next 9 turns (the rest of the first year), you can summon 5 archbishops if you dont summon mages. Bad for research, good for having Lictors.

Your freespawn are pretty good for expansion by themselves (well, they need a commander, but it's not long before you get free commanders too).
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Aird14
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Witch Hunter
LDiCesare,Feb 22 2017
06:01 PM
How do you perform early expansion, research, and getting more mages if you pick a dormant or imprisoned pretender? Having sacred elite troops for Ermor doesn't look good to me. There are few of them compared to eagle warriors but they require as much infrastructure to set up, and you have nothing to defend yourself with in the meantime.
You have to get lucky (Etimmu...) before you can start searching and getting gems to get more mages. Otherwise, you can recruit 1 mage per turn at the cost of depleting your whole D gems. You can also site search with spectators, but that's only one path at 2.
How are you going to defend against early aggression without an awake pretender, considering you'rethe most likely nation in the game to be on th receiving end of an early 2 vs 1?

Hi LDiCesare
For early expansion, I use the prophet, some of the sacred believe try using that bless the knight kills any indy, unless is something big as a troll, 40-50 indies fell to same number of skeletons (10+ or less) and 1-2 Knight.

Research is going to be lame, honestly if you put score graphs in those game you will cry each time you see research. Sure you need to use some spells but you have to save gems to empower your first spectator.

Also I will address those things next in tactics. Either if you don't like the idea of not getting an awake pretender well, I will try to make both, remeber diferent is not doom to failure maybe less chance of winning, I imagine is popular opinion, I'm looking here to do things less unexpected and I don't expect this guide to be used by a pro or advanced player.

For not being 2 vs 1, in some cases people is unwilling to face Ermor themselves, if they coordinate attacks or trust each other probably you are doomed (Even with a pretender in play). That's why I put the tip on diplomacy. Also helps not making temples on your border (Again I have and I'm doing those things right now).

And really I insist read the link at the end of the post, there you have the experience of playing Ermor without your pretender, that would be a short better answer that any I can give right now.

Thanks a lot for your help.
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Aird14
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Witch Hunter
ben_sphynx,Feb 22 2017
06:51 PM
Tripple bless Lictors really are very good.

You can choose to sacrifice research by spending gems on (first empowering your D2 to D3, which is 45D gems, then) summoning Archbishops of Eldregate, who can summon one Lictor per turn.

Suppose you are getting 15D gems per turn from your capital. On turn 3, you can empower your d2 to d3 (After doing 3 turns of research). Over the next 9 turns (the rest of the first year), you can summon 5 archbishops if you dont summon mages. Bad for research, good for having Lictors.

Your freespawn are pretty good for expansion by themselves (well, they need a commander, but it's not long before you get free commanders too).

Hi ben_sphynx,

yeah triple bless is really good for lictors I recommend D9N9B9 and for knight it's D9N9W9.

My preference is to W9 instead of B9 because you can use some of the spells.
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jBrereton
Dom 5 Beta Team
LDiCesare,Feb 22 2017
06:01 PM
How do you perform early expansion, research, and getting more mages if you pick a dormant or imprisoned pretender? Having sacred elite troops for Ermor doesn't look good to me. There are few of them compared to eagle warriors but they require as much infrastructure to set up, and you have nothing to defend yourself with in the meantime.
You have to get lucky (Etimmu...) before you can start searching and getting gems to get more mages. Otherwise, you can recruit 1 mage per turn at the cost of depleting your whole D gems. You can also site search with spectators, but that's only one path at 2.
How are you going to defend against early aggression without an awake pretender, considering you'rethe most likely nation in the game to be on th receiving end of an early 2 vs 1?

Revenants are your research mages as Ermor, not Spectators. It's a 2RP hit for being much more massable. It's not that unlikely you'll find +3 death gems through sites even early, and 2x(7+/- Magic/Drain) RP is better than 9 +/- M/D.

They're also available at Ench 3 not Ench 4, which is a way smaller research investment and opens up the sometimes-useful Raise Skeletons for your D2 mages/D1 with a gem.

Typically, though, Thaumaturgy is probably the best research path for you, because the Frighten/Terror spells are an excellent way to hold off living armies, and later on you get Burden of Time, which is going to very quickly lead to people dropping out of the game so their provinces are easy meat, plus it hurts blood hunting nations who late-on are likely to be your biggest problem. If people manage to get the gems together to dispel it, it's only ever going to be like 4 turns until you can cast it again.

You can defend early with your longdead units, they are actually really good units as well as being free. Their survivability is pretty comparable to many human units early on, and your supply lines are typically shorter, plus you can get some UW provinces to help your income for setting up new forts/temples/labs, which many land nations don't have good access to.
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suppenit
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RP per gem ratio of revenants and spectators is the same for Drain 1 (12/(9-1) = 1.5, 9/(7-1)=1.5), and spectators are better in other respect - as mages, as forgers and as thugs.

I wish I read this thread before beginning current Ermor game. Would heavily invest in Lictor production and probably climb Thaumaturgy tree.
aka olli!, bumpjack
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jBrereton
Dom 5 Beta Team
suppenit,Feb 23 2017
12:49 PM
RP per gem ratio of revenants and spectators is the same for Drain 1 (12/(9-1) = 1.5, 9/(7-1)=1.5), and spectators are better in other respect - as mages, as forgers and as thugs.

I wish I read this thread before beginning current Ermor game. Would heavily invest in Lictor production and probably climb Thaumaturgy tree.

RP per gem is not the same as having two mages you can boost, or use one of in the lab while you send another out to fight/search/remote search, not that I would ever take Drain on Ermor.

I'm not saying some Spectators aren't useful by any means, but there's more to it than RP/gem in Drain.

Really, the nation benefits a lot from the magic diversity you can get from Magic/Luck scales in terms of lucky events, on top of your RP being improved on a nation with mediocre-to-bad access to boosters/with other things to research than Constr 6 for fire lanterns.

An alternative to a big bless (although it is powerful) is something like a Dom 8 Titan of Wisdom T3S3C3D3L3M3, A4E4S6D4, who is a huge lab mage/good event platform who can cast globals/forge stuff later on.

You can get a Dusk Elder turn 2, get the pretender back researching, get an Arch Bishop for your second army the turn after with the DE and then a Bishop on turn 4 with your starting Spectator who can reanimate and expand while another comes out the turn after before you go back down to 15 gems (provided you don't get any luck events/find sites).

Very good expansion. This is how I was looking on Turn 6 of a little AI test game I ran to make sure I was remembering things right (includes my pretender and a small party going into a pretty reasonably-dangerous throne and my prophet who ended up next to Marignon plopping a fort down before the Commander gets recruited to take over):

http://i.imgur.com/HGGgHZK.jpg

In terms of research I'm getting Ench 3 next turn even with the 44 RP pretender moving off, before moving into Thaumaturgy.
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LDiCesare
*Spicy* Crew
I was talking about early research. Spectators are the only thing you can use before you get some levels in Ench or Conj. So for at least these 3 first levels, you need them.

My interrogation is:
Is it viable not to have an awake pretender as Ermor?
Just the lack of the pretender dominion means less spread and less chaff for instance.
Now maybe it's a good idea not to expand too fast as MA Ermor? Hide, build up, launch BoT and turtle?
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jBrereton
Dom 5 Beta Team
End of year 1 update:
http://i.imgur.com/yGyA99a.jpg

Even with some slightly suboptimal movement and only 1 mound king spawning, Ermor's got 21 provinces, is attacking 4 the next turn and has multiple armies coming from the rear and a couple of forts and temples well on the way.

Got Ench 3, Thaum 2 and about a hundred research points with a double revenant cast for more going forwards.

Against other players, probably Marignon would have been a bit more of a headwind to my progress, but this is showing you the potential you have even without using Lictors at all (normally don't summon them until I get in a war and hit constr 2 for the Black Laurel
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Red_Rob
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Dreamer of Dreams
LDiCesare,Feb 23 2017
02:23 PM

Is it viable not to have an awake pretender as Ermor?

In Dom3 and early in Dom4 it was the accepted wisdom you needed an awake Pretender to do everything you have listed. However, that changed after Devnada posted about a "joke build" he was trying for an RP game:https://devnada.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/dr...a-introduction/

Tri-Bless Ermor, how wacky! Except it turns out that having a D2 mage to start in Dom4 coupled with Ermor's sky-high Death gem income means you can effectively bootstrap to D3 fairly easily, allowing a dormant or even imprisoned Pretender. In return you get so many points with Ermor's typical dump scales + imprisoned that you can afford a ridiculous bless. As Ermor has decent sacred freespawn Horsemen aswell as tanky sacred Lictor summons, you can effectively circumvent the fact you have no money and roll out a surprising number of triple-blessed troops pretty early, supported with your regular freespawn chaff. The usual pitfall of tribless nations is they can't afford sacreds, chaff and mages with their terrible scales, but Ermor gets freespawn sacreds and chaff and then summons its mages with gems. This means it can power out a constant attack force and overwhelm other nations with a torrent of high quality troops that only increases in volume as the game proceeds.

Imprisoned Tribless Ermor has since gone from a bad joke to the dominant choice. People now talk about not imprisoning your Pretender as a weird experimental build.
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