How can I beat the Ermor?

[151771029]

I use the Ulm now, I am a player from China.

[Sandman]

Buy many priests.

[Nerfix]

Yeah, buying many, many, many priests will help. Using Blade Wind will help too.

Ermor is a very hard enemy nevertheless, especially in single player.

[Endoperez]

The easiest answer is to play against Broken Empire ermor only. They don't get huge number of undead for free, their lands are worth conquering, the living half of their armies can still rout, etc.

If you have patched the game, I have made a mod that effectively removes the undead Ermor themes from game for as long as the mod is enabled. I have attached it in this post. Extract the contents of the .zip file into the \mods\ folder in your \Dominions II\ folder. It might be C:\Shrapnel Games\Dominions II\mods, but probably isn't. Once the mod is in the correct folder, start Dominions, and from the start menu, choose first Preferences, then Mod Preferences, then the mod. Then you can play, and will see the mod's icon on the main menu.

[shovah]

SC's with good stats, reinvig and regen can tak most ermorian troops. Try some thugs/SC's with support from massed priests, smiths with earth boots casting summon earthpower then bladewind and maybe some thugish knights (they have high prot so undead cant really hurt them, give them charcoal shield, amulet of reinvig and ring of regen and watch undead fall). If you can summon golems get them, they can use good buffs, have full slots and are strong. Also try a bunch of black knights with legions of steel/army of gold or some other form of buff.

[Fate]

Get full Dominion and build lots of temples. LOTS of temples.

[shovah]

yes, if his dominion reaches you lands your in trouble.

[Saxon]

Put the Eye of Aiming on some of the priests, their Banishment spell will get much deadlier. Watch the underwater provinces, as the undead can go underwater. May I suggest a wall of heavy troops on hold and attack, at the back of the battlefield. Put your priests and archers behind them. This gives the highest number of Banishment and arrow attacks before your heavy troops engage and then protect your missle/Banishmet troops.

[Saber Cherry]

Your enemies will never fatigue, so they will eventually beat your living soldiers, no matter how superior their stats... unless... you cast Relief!

For invading Ermor, bring Endless Bags of Wine. Herald Lances and Flambeaus are nice, just for their spells, not for combat. Troopwise, favor archers over melee, but bring enough melee units to protect everyone (heaviest armor + shield; attack and damage don't matter, only protection, defense, and morale). The best offensive mages are Fire (Holy Pyre, Falling Fires), Earth (Blade Wind), and Death (Dust to Dust, Wither Bones). The best support mages are Nature (Relief - essential!, and optionally Mass Protection), Air (Wind Guide - increases precision of mages and priests, not just archers!), and Water (Mass Quickness for 2X priest banishment).

Lastly, give your Prophet (or highest-holy priest) Boots of Quickness, Rune Smasher, Lucky Coin, Amulet of Penetration, Girdle of Might or Amulet of Resilience, and have him cast Banishment along with the other priests. As was said, you need lots of priests. Think ~40 priests with 50 archers and 50 heavy infantry, all backed by a few mages, to deal with armies of 1000 undead without significant losses. You need live soldiers and mages because the AI always mixes living (starving) units with its undead hordes. Ideally, your losses will only be from province defense (30+ at a single-province chokepoint, or ~20 otherwise) when you are the defender. Wars against Ermor require more PD than normal.

Note that if you know ahead of time your opponent is Ashen/Soulgate Ermor, taking a Water-9 pretender is a good idea, just for the extra banishment.

P.S. Don't forget Fanaticism / Sermon of Courage! If your infantry run away, you lose 2000 gold of priests.

[Fate]

A neat trick, especially against the AI, is to send some scouts through there territory and attack 0 PD provinces. If there is no leader, they will all fall apart.

[Folket]

Intresting, but from what I have seen the AI builds pd everywhere.

[Archonsod]

Assassins can work wonders. Eliminate the characters holding the armies together before you attack and Eremor becomes a non-issue, as long as you can keep his domain away.

[Agrajag]

Archonsod said:
Assassins can work wonders. Eliminate the characters holding the armies together before you attack and Eremor becomes a non-issue, as long as you can keep his domain away.


Which is again an issue if he has PD...
Also, some of Ermor's commanders can be quite tough.

[Valandil]

True enough. Assassinating a wraith consul would be hard, and a dusk elder almost impossible.

How good is purgatory?
Astral is nice for solar rays/brilliance if you can get it.
The forbidden light isn't bad, but there is only one, and it's const. 8.
What about inner sun? or phoenix pyre/reinvig?

opnions?

[Cainehill]

Forbidden light is also rough because it tends to get whomever is wielding it killed, even pretenders. Big honking huge horrors show up - I've even lost pretenders to 'em.

[Archonsod]

Agrajag said:
Which is again an issue if he has PD...



You'll eventually fight his main commanders though, once they're gone the PD commanders are fairly easy to deal with.


Also, some of Ermor's commanders can be quite tough.


Never said it would be easy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Doesn't have to be one on one though, simply having a good combat character who can somehow engage the Ermor commanders at the start of battle can also work. A good bow in the hands of a high precision commander or someone equipped with boots of flying and some of the anti-undead weapons should do it (especially against the AI). Back them up with some bowmen to help finish off the rest of the army as it crumbles and you could probably start taking provinces without taking any casualties.