Balance problems with Ermor?

[Loren]

I'm still learning the game but I have noticed something. I've played a fair number of games where I get my fair share of the map and then find it's hopeless because someone else (AI, not human) got far more than their share. It's almost always Ermor. I've had the same thing happen with EA and LA, although I've played very few MA games to see what happens.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ermor often shows up as the first nation that people feel is imbalanced, mostly because the AI does pretty well with it. Turning up the indepts when you start a game can help. Also gifting anti-undead items to whatever nation is next to Ermor can slow it down until you get that far on the map (and those gifts dont help them against you). Certain nations are particularly strong against Ermor, Marignon has always been one. Going into a strong defense mode can work on some maps until Ermor burns-out its populations.

[HoneyBadger]

It's not unbalanced if the AI does well with it, it's only unbalanced if players have an unfair advantage. If Ermor is weighed against all other nations, in a way that a human being can take advantage of it, more than they could with any other nation, then it becomes a problem.

Just something to consider: Try playing Ermor yourself and see how well you do with it, compared to how well you do with every other nation.

[Agrajag]

The "problem" with Ermor is that the AI plays it pretty effectively, and is pretty lousy in playing against Ermor, so it is not surprising that you see Ermor high up in the graphs in SP games.
If you can pull a victory with LA Ermor in MP, I'll definitely be impressed.

[Meglobob]

Agrajag said:
The "problem" with Ermor is that the AI plays it pretty effectively, and is pretty lousy in playing against Ermor, so it is not surprising that you see Ermor high up in the graphs in SP games.
If you can pull a victory with LA Ermor in MP, I'll definitely be impressed.



Agrajag is spot on here, any nation like LA Ermor that gets freespawn is very good for the AI to play. The AI loves to have huge armies of anything really, so freespawn is a gift to it.

Not sure whats going on with EA Ermor thou...

In MP EA Ermor has done poorly in all my games and LA Ermor does very well early on, then gets stomped by an alliance of players usually. LA Ermor has huge weaknesses that enable you to deal with them, consider using cleansing, inner sun, mass priests casting banishment, dust to dust and loads of other anti-undead spells.

[Stryke11]

I am living proof that EA Ermor is very challenging in MP. Granted, I'm not that good. I suppose that if you are located in a position where you can avoid the few nations with the guaranteed double/triple bless rush, and let other people soak up that damage, in the mid-late game the Ermor's decent mages, spectacular national troops, and affliction healing priests can hold their own. I wouldn't class EA Ermor as being an AI giant the same way the two "evil" Ermor's are.

[tibbs]

Meglobob said:

Agrajag said:
The "problem" with Ermor is that the AI plays it pretty effectively, and is pretty lousy in playing against Ermor, so it is not surprising that you see Ermor high up in the graphs in SP games.
If you can pull a victory with LA Ermor in MP, I'll definitely be impressed.



Agrajag is spot on here, any nation like LA Ermor that gets freespawn is very good for the AI to play. The AI loves to have huge armies of anything really, so freespawn is a gift to it.

Not sure whats going on with EA Ermor thou...

In MP EA Ermor has done poorly in all my games and LA Ermor does very well early on, then gets stomped by an alliance of players usually. LA Ermor has huge weaknesses that enable you to deal with them, consider using cleansing, inner sun, mass priests casting banishment, dust to dust and loads of other anti-undead spells.



Hey, I thought I was doing pretty good against both you and Tien-Chi in that Late age game we played!

Just like there are counters to undead, there are also spells that really work well with them. Foul Vapors, Rigor Mortis,Darkness, Utterdark, Burden of Time.

The hardest part about late age Ermor is diplomacy. It is hard to make friends with your neighbors when your dominion is killing their population and robbing them of income.

[mac5732]

I would think, that most players would want a tough Ai opponnent for SP play.. If (which has been done in many games, most recently war in the pacific to the Japenese player) players find the AI or an ai race to strong, complaints start coming in, then in the next patch, you start to see it the race degraded to a ineffective one. Myself, I would rather have a tougher ai opponnent even if its unbalanced, just to make the game interesting. It would be boring if I won all the time in SP. Now MP is different matter altogether... Just my 2 cents.

[Loren]

My problem isn't with a tough AI. I like a tough AI.

The problem is that the various opponents are so different in ability. Before you have a chance to do anything about Ermor they have all but won the game.

Imagine an all-human game with two experts and a bunch of newbies. Who is going to win? The expert in a better position to run over the newbies. In reality the game is over before turn 1 although nobody knows it at the time.

[HoneyBadger]

You could always eliminate Ermor from an SP game if it bothers you so much, that is a possibility.

One thing I have found though is that, the more I learn about strategy in Dom3, the less I worry about any particular Nation. There's always a way to beat them, especially in SP.

There are plenty of reasons why we don't have great AI for Dom3, but there are lots of things that could be done to make it better, even with all the complexity going on. I'm all for a mean SP and I hope we get it sooner rather than later.

[Meglobob]

tibbs said:

Meglobob said:

Agrajag said:
The "problem" with Ermor is that the AI plays it pretty effectively, and is pretty lousy in playing against Ermor, so it is not surprising that you see Ermor high up in the graphs in SP games.
If you can pull a victory with LA Ermor in MP, I'll definitely be impressed.



Agrajag is spot on here, any nation like LA Ermor that gets freespawn is very good for the AI to play. The AI loves to have huge armies of anything really, so freespawn is a gift to it.

Not sure whats going on with EA Ermor thou...

In MP EA Ermor has done poorly in all my games and LA Ermor does very well early on, then gets stomped by an alliance of players usually. LA Ermor has huge weaknesses that enable you to deal with them, consider using cleansing, inner sun, mass priests casting banishment, dust to dust and loads of other anti-undead spells.



Hey, I thought I was doing pretty good against both you and Tien-Chi in that Late age game we played!



You did tibbs, so far you have played LA Ermor better than any other player I have encountered controlling that nation, thats why you made my top ten most dangerous MP list. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[NTJedi]

During games with LA Ermor... I actually find the game easier to play because his death dominion hurts the other computer opponents greatly since they don't know how to prevent units from starving. Thus the game turns into me verses Ermor. I usually don't place him on a map because victory is easier yet comes more slowly due to lack of supplies in the provinces.
LA Ermor is the most nasty of the AI opponents.

[Tyrant]

HoneyBadger said:

One thing I have found though is that, the more I learn about strategy in Dom3, the less I worry about any particular Nation. There's always a way to beat them, especially in SP.





This comment is spot on and goes to the heart of why this is such a superb game.

[Meglobob]

Tyrant said:

HoneyBadger said:

One thing I have found though is that, the more I learn about strategy in Dom3, the less I worry about any particular Nation. There's always a way to beat them, especially in SP.





This comment is spot on and goes to the heart of why this is such a superb game.



Yea, I agree. There are powerful nations but every nation has a way of beating them.

Alot of people seem to complain about balance but I think dominions is very, very well balanced. The only drawback to this, is in MP you can get some stalemate situations, where 2 good players are fighting each another over dozens of turns with no headway.

[Loren]

HoneyBadger said:
You could always eliminate Ermor from an SP game if it bothers you so much, that is a possibility.

One thing I have found though is that, the more I learn about strategy in Dom3, the less I worry about any particular Nation. There's always a way to beat them, especially in SP.

There are plenty of reasons why we don't have great AI for Dom3, but there are lots of things that could be done to make it better, even with all the complexity going on. I'm all for a mean SP and I hope we get it sooner rather than later.



The problem is *NOT* with playing against Ermor directly. That doesn't bother me.

My problem is with Ermor mopping up everyone around while they are on the far side of the world.

[HoneyBadger]

Try setting Independents to Strength 9. That'll probably help a lot. I usually play that way and Ermor has become much less noticeable.