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Advice on dealing with Quad-Bless MA Ermor; W9/N9/D9/B9
Topic Started: Apr 8 2017, 12:27 AM (1,903 Views)
Cael Immortalis
Markata
There seem to be an awful lot of MA games starting up on the Steam Forums lately and almost all of them have the host or one of the first choices wanting to play Ermor. I suspect it has something to do with the guide on the front page here.
I was hoping to bounce around some ideas about how to handle fighting against them.

I'm currently fighting Ermor as Nazca myself, approaching the end of year two, and I'm having a bit of trouble dealing with their Sacred Knights and Lictors, especially as they have a quad-bless.

There are other people also fighting Ermor, but they seem to be having similar problems, as far as I can tell, no one has been able to win a straight-up victory against their armies, although I did manage to wipe out half of a pack of 30 in exchange for about 80 chaff-flyers.
They come in packs of around 30 per army, supported by 100 or so longdead. Their Bless is W9, N9. D9, B9 and even my own specialist anti-undead Sun Guard Sacreds lose against them, despite outnumbering them.

I've had a great deal of success using Dust to Dust and high level Banishment, but the huge amount of damage these spells deal relative to the hit-points of my mages mean that one failed MR check and the Blood Vengeance wounds my mages into either retreating or mummifying and it takes two or three Dust to Dusts to kill each Lictor.

My usual tactic of beating the unbeatable army by raiding everywhere else runs into supply issues vs Ermor, plus there are three or four of these armies on a wide front.
However, I've a few other ideas on how to handle this, was wondering if anyone else had successfully held off this kind of opponent in the past and if people can advise on what might or might not work:

- Fighting troops with troops is basically a losing proposition, as my scouts have watched the elite troops of other nations get eaten alive by the blessed Sacreds, including other Sacreds with a dual-bless.
Nazca has terrible fort-troops and makes up for it only in numbers, which is fine normally but Ermor has even more numbers by a significant margin, with more free-spawning all the time. Supaya's might work, but mine aren't heavily blessed and they are hard to mass (summoners for them are silly-expensive).

- Stick with Banishment, Dust to Dust and eventually Wither Bones, gearing up for increased MR and Anti-Magic to make my mages less likely to die. Luck and +MR items might help with this, but are expensive.
It seems that given the number of Sacreds an H3 banishment can hit, and the fact each one has to be hit 3-4 times, even a 1% chance of it rebounding will go wrong sooner rather than later. Will require construction.
Summoning blockers via horde of skeletons or similar might allow mages to operate in smaller numbers than needed for other tactics

- Flaming Arrows and large numbers of archers is usually a good counter to even Sacred cavalry, though the downside is actual bows deal piercing damage, which doesn't work against longdead too well. Easily countered by Arrow Fend, but I think it will be a while until Ermor has that research, with Drain scales of at least 2. Weak on the offense, as it's hard to get critical mass marching through Ermor's supply-drained territory.

- Elephants/Behemoths - I read that Trample makes units immune to blood vengeance and I do have a province that could produce elephants, plus enough Death to summon Behemoths. I also have air and astral, enough to make them ethereal and fly. However, I suspect that the 20 strength hits of the knights and higher of the lictors will cleave through them too fast even with that benefit, plus the D9 bless gives a magic-weapon. Also, very high gold - or gem cost so not necessarily cost effective even if they do work.

- Battlefield Summoning - I can research up to summon Earth Elementals and with a little more effort and an item, Air and Fire Elementals. It's another way to Trample and seems like a strong option as long as I can get enough mages to mass-produce the elementals, but I'd need a very large number of them to not get wiped out by the absurd damage output of the Knights and Lictors. Also, throwing a dozen gems at every fight whilst fighting troops Ermor mostly gets as Freespawn sounds like a way to lose the war in the long-run.

- I could keep trying with the Sun Guard- x3 damage is a lot, so if these guys do manage to land a hit, and don't die from Blood Vengeance, even the D9 and N9 won't let the Lictors survive more than three hits. They get torn to pieces by the Knights though- hitting Cavalry under a Water Bless is almost impossible but I suspect that with the right alteration and enchantment spells, they might be able to live long enough to do the job despite their initial failure, although their size-3 doesn't help at all. Are there any stand-out buffs that would allow these guys to go toe-to-toe with the Knights or Lictors? I think Death Weapons from D9 counters Ethereal and (eventual) Fog Warriors?

- Thugs/SCs- I'm sure there are clever strategies and combinations of chassis and items that will work wonders against even a quad-bless sacred pack. I'm not sure what they are, but I suspect Fire Shield could turn the Quickness bless into a liability and Mistform could help my thug live unless Death Weapons pops it (which I think it might, would need to test). Any other good suggestions?

I'm mostly looking for solutions that are viable in early mid-game and can be accessed fairly quickly, research levels 2-4. I'm aware that there are ways to purge entire armies of undead at higher level, but right now, spamming Undead Mastery (or even just Control The Dead) is out of reach.
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dyslexicfaser
*Spicy* Crew
That seems to cover your bases pretty well. Quadbless Ermor is simply a nightmare; there's reasons it's often banned in MP.

Remember your workhorse mage can come in E2 varieties, which means you can drop Maws of Earth if you go Alteration. That'll stop them in their tracks for a turn so you can get more banishment/dust to dust time.
If your mages are dying to BV backlash, well, Paqos can cast Healing Touch. Couldn't hurt to have one in the back with your mages doing his thing.
You could try giving Fires in Jars to your Acllas and throwing fireballs with cheaper mages, but the efficacy of that one is a little doubtful.
You could try and build up your Coyas to mindhunt whatever few commanders he has, so you don't even have to fight the damned Lictors?

Also, Con4 lets your mountain Paqos build Endless Bags of Wine for your raiding needs.
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suppenit
Member Avatar
*Spicy* Crew
I'm currently losing as triple-blessed Ermor N9D9B9 to dual-blessed W9B9 Nazca. Because:

1) Ermor is well-known threat and it is nightmare to diplomatically negotiate peace with neighbors; I was dogpiled by three people while Nazca snowballed unopposed, I managed to survive and keep my territory while Nazca player managed to conquer two more capitals and two more kingdoms.
2) It is summod and suppaya are buffed there with weapons being hard to resist while Ermor nerfed with increased cost of forts. Disregard this consideration for vanilla game.
3) Suppayas are amassed much more easier that Lictors. Nazca produces StR Coya or whatever - H3 priests - suicides them and thus gains lifetime summoners who forever summon 2 suppaya per turn for as low as 300 gold for 2 turns upfront payment. Ermor has to spend 23 death gems to summon Archbishops who summon one Lictor per turn sacrificing already awful research.
4) Suppayas have much more synergy for magic buffs. Being ethereal, flying even in storms, aquatic and utilizing magic weapon (even MR-negating one) is serious advantage comparing to land-only not flying not ethereal phisical hitting Lictors.
5) Logistic: being flying is boon for many bad terrain maps.
6) Research: Nazca has normal research while Ermor's research is atrophic one. Especially research of triple or quad blessed Ermor who invests in Archbishops.
7) Nazca has much better magic diversity.

To sum it up, Ermor is more powerful in early game straightforward fights. Nazca becomes vastly superior as game develops with logistic, diplomatic, research and buffing - basically all important game aspect except straightforward no-magic melee - advantage.

As for fighting Ermor, there are two ideas:

1) first turn EQ or RoS to get rid of chaff and KotS, then mages should retreat.

2) Massed Fire Elementals backed by Antimagic and heavy evocation, dust to dust, Control undead support. Add skelespam, phantasmal armies and creeping dooms to keep Lictors on bay. If Ermor uses Rigor - negate it with Relief. Prevent Ermorian Antimagic with first turn Magic Duel spam: Dusk Elders are expensive with 20 gems per one and have only S1 or S2 if lucky. Evokers and priests should be backed by Antimagic, use Antimagic Amulets and ideally be supported with Regeneration. Fire concentration is key to success here.
aka olli!, bumpjack
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Johannes
*Spicy* Crew
You left a major point in Supaya vs Lictor out: the former is cold resistant, unlike most things.
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Mitrompeta
Markata
Quadbless Ermor likely has low ish dominion. You could try pushing your dominion into his fort+temp provinces to decrease freespawn.

Additionally quadbless Ermor probably has misfortune scales. Therefore his money generation should be low and he is likely to have few forts. You could try to 1-turn siege the few forts he has with mass flyers. Only do this if he doesnt have a lot of ghouls in his forts though!

In battle you can also counter his knights with eartmeld (alt 2) (holding them for 1 turn and destroying their defence) and sun guards (attack cavalry).
Buff them with strength of giants (ench 3) pushing their dmg to 22 and 66 against undead/demons.

In battle you can also go for his leadership. Almost all ermor's units are mindless. Light of the northern star (conj 4) will make 1/3 of your hurin priests s2 and your coya's s3. this allows them to cast mindburn/soulslay (thaum) which will only target units that are not mindless = ermor's leadership (or his ghouls, take care of the ghouls first!)

lastly, with this Quadbless strategy MA ermor's has put all his eggs into one basket. If you can deal with his sacreds somewhat effectively you should be able to destroy him as he doesnt have much to follow up on his sacreds.

Good luck!
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zhraia
Troll
The game in question is at turn 101 and almost over (Ermor is probably going to win), but thanks anyway.
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