What is Ermor doing?

[Gargoyle]

In SP game on Cradle map.

I've noticed something strange about Ermor's tactics. For example, I have cornered 4 provinces in the northeast of the map where there are three provinces belonging to Man and they all border one province belonging to Ermor.

I border only the provinces belonging to Man and all three of Man's provinces border the one Ermor province. Now the Ermor province has like 420 troops of all sorts in it and the provinces of Man have less than 100 each. Its has been many turns like that and Ermor never attacks out of that province. I have deliberately waited, hoping Ermor would attack and take some loses before I bash my armies into all 4 of theses armies.

Is there any commom reason why Ermor would leave large forces in different places around the map not attacking? I've seen a couple more that just sit there.

[Nerfix]

Maybe they're on the defence.

[Gargoyle]

Nerfix said:
Maybe they're on the defence.



I have not seen any other races build forces of this size and when they do build fairly large forces they are quite aggressive with them. Yet these huge Ermor forces just sit there, never moving or attacking.

[Edi]

Ermor often does that. Could be lack of commanders or some such, but it is routine to see absolutely massive piles of Ermorian troops in every province it controls and doing basically nothing. With BE it's ghouls, with AE it's longdead and soulless and with SG it's shadows and shades and the spirit thingies.

Edi

[Sandman]

Is it Ermor's home province? If not, it's probably caused by the Ermorian cultist random event; they'll have three or so cultists, constantly summoning creatures, but no way to get any better leaders.

[Gargoyle]

Edi said:
Ermor often does that. Could be lack of commanders or some such, but it is routine to see absolutely massive piles of Ermorian troops in every province it controls and doing basically nothing. With BE it's ghouls, with AE it's longdead and soulless and with SG it's shadows and shades and the spirit thingies.

Edi



and...


Sandman said:
Is it Ermor's home province? If not, it's probably caused by the Ermorian cultist random event; they'll have three or so cultists, constantly summoning creatures, but no way to get any better leaders.



This is informative. This sound like a place I like to cast Fires from Afar in. Just how good is an army like that? Can an Army with no SCs, but good quality troops, commanders and mages of say half there number be expected to win or loss against it. I guess I am intimidated by the sheer size of armies.

[PrinzMegaherz]

I don't think that whatever is standing there is worth the gems for fires from afar. But you haven't told us what nation you are playing. Are you prepared to face the most fierce AI nation Dominions 2 has to offer?

[NTJedi]

I've seen Ermor stack as many as 1,700 troops on a single province and in most games he usually does not cast any domes for protection even for his capital. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
The mass building of armies is good... yet the AI never launches these units into battle after building them. It's attacks are usually insignificant during late game.

That's not the only unusual tactic Ermor does... for some reason Ermor does not research blood magic ! During one game Ermor sky-rocketed on research which is EXTREMELY rare to see and then leveled off on the graph much sooner then myself when researching was finished.
During this game Ermor was bringing in 10 death gems a turn at this capital yet even with research maxed out he never casted Ghost_Riders. Thus one reason I don't use this spell against computer opponents.

[Edi]

Only 1700 troops? Boy, you haven't seen anything. Try three or four provinces with 4500 ghouls each, and that was just what I could see at a glance. BE Ermor can be absolutely incredible with the reanimation hoarding of troops.

Edi

[Gargoyle]

PrinzMegaherz said:
I don't think that whatever is standing there is worth the gems for fires from afar. But you haven't told us what nation you are playing. Are you prepared to face the most fierce AI nation Dominions 2 has to offer?



I'm playing Machaka. I have the highest gem income in the world and I want to take out at least that one province so I can wrap up that whole side of the map.


NTJedi said:
I've seen Ermor stack as many as 1,700 troops on a single province and in most games he usually does not cast any domes for protection even for his capital. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
The mass building of armies is good... yet the AI never launches these units into battle after building them. It's attacks are usually insignificant during late game.

That's not the only unusual tactic Ermor does... for some reason Ermor does not research blood magic ! During one game Ermor sky-rocketed on research which is EXTREMELY rare to see and then leveled off on the graph much sooner then myself when researching was finished.
During this game Ermor was bringing in 10 death gems a turn at this capital yet even with research maxed out he never casted Ghost_Riders. Thus one reason I don't use this spell against computer opponents.



On the Cradle map I own port provinces that connect to Ermor ports that have huge armies. It really makes me have to keep larges defensive armies at the these ports. Now if I am to act upon your findings I could stop garrisoning against an attack that will never come. But when I play against an AI in any game I stay away from exploiting it in this way. I react to it as if it may make a move a human would make. Basically I give it more respect than it deserves but in the end it makes for a better game.

[NTJedi]

Gargoyle said:

NTJedi said:
I've seen Ermor stack as many as 1,700 troops on a single province and in most games he usually does not cast any domes for protection even for his capital. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
The mass building of armies is good... yet the AI never launches these units into battle after building them. It's attacks are usually insignificant during late game.

That's not the only unusual tactic Ermor does... for some reason Ermor does not research blood magic ! During one game Ermor sky-rocketed on research which is EXTREMELY rare to see and then leveled off on the graph much sooner then myself when researching was finished.
During this game Ermor was bringing in 10 death gems a turn at this capital yet even with research maxed out he never casted Ghost_Riders. Thus one reason I don't use this spell against computer opponents.



On the Cradle map I own port provinces that connect to Ermor ports that have huge armies. It really makes me have to keep larges defensive armies at the these ports. Now if I am to act upon your findings I could stop garrisoning against an attack that will never come. But when I play against an AI in any game I stay away from exploiting it in this way. I react to it as if it may make a move a human would make. Basically I give it more respect than it deserves but in the end it makes for a better game.



Playing defensively can bring a good game when facing computer opponents. Lately I've been editing the map files and allowing each computer opponent to start with extra magic sites(especially nature) on their capital and starting them with the "Ivy King" and "Forest Dome" spell. This provides a better game challenge and the Ivy Kings they summon help prevent starvation in armies.

[Oversway]

Someone suggested something these lines awhile back, although maybe they used map commands to do it. Anyways, what I've done is manually create gods for all the AI nations. I try to pick either immobile gods or those with recuperation (and I give the recup ones no or little magic). Sometimes I do immortal but I'm not sure the AI is smart about keeping an immortal god inside their dominion. Basically a pretender that can't easily get itself killed or one that can die over and over with less penalty, since the AI is going to do that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Anyways with the low cost pretenders I give them great scales (high growth!) and a good admin castle (usually fortified city) since the AI won't build another.

I play the first few rounds to get them a good prophet and starting troops, then let them go. Even without the bonus points, the AI does well enough to be a challenge. It is not perfect -- you know where everyone is and what capabilities their pretender has. But I've found them to be enjoyable.

[Boron]

NTJedi said:
Playing defensively can bring a good game when facing computer opponents. Lately I've been editing the map files and allowing each computer opponent to start with extra magic sites(especially nature) on their capital and starting them with the "Ivy King" and "Forest Dome" spell. This provides a better game challenge and the Ivy Kings they summon help prevent starvation in armies.


If i play SP i just play with a little mod which gives +2000% supply and +300% resources. Then i just select impossible AIs and voila i have fun. Without the need to care about resources it feels entirely different from MP too and is even more fun.
I try to use armies mainly too and little magic/scs.
The result are some nice gigantic battles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
I like especially playing SP with the black moon mods and the forest of loren mod.

[shovah]

against ai i love using masses of magical creatures ( although its often overkill on ulm if my creatures have magic attacks ) and if the opponent has a sc i just get like 3 - 4 fairy queens with rings of regen + a good bow/staff then make loads of sprites, these little dudes rock vrs scs ( i killed eater of the dead with like 2000hp with this tactic ) and the queens rnt bad mages either, im getting off topic and all i can say is if you wana take out some of these big undead armies summon/make alot of priests, and if your playing as ermor soul g8/ ashen then try to cast utterdark and well of misery, with suck low precision its very hard for things to hit your legions and with such low income its not even funny, if an ermorian opponent casts utterdark then stop it, and i also have noticed some strange ermorian tactics