Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

Are you sure? LA Ermor is a bit of a "Please kill me quickly" nation. I'm afraid that it would be very hard for you to stay alive. Same as LA Rlyeh, also a, everybody get water breathing items and kill his horrible dominion.

No Ashdod in this game? Damn... :)

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

Deja vu, I'm in a MP game with LA rlyeh in a cradle of domination map, and I've been ganked to oblivion (stuck in a narrow waterway surround by land doesn't help!).

Agree on LA ermor, it doesn't play like most other nations and either dies quickly or rolls over everyone quickly, might not be the best choice for a 1st MP game nation pick

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

1st mp game LA Ermor would just guarantee you would get killed quickly. Everybody know how strong it is, and everybody fears your dominion. First time mp player, so you would be struggling against some attacks. You should try Ashdod. It is considered overpowered. But not by a newbie player. And we have some other strong nations in the game.

Ps: I have some MP tips:
- First, use diplomacy. Try to speak to your opponents, if you see a player, send a message. And not a one word message. The more time you take in diplo, the more likely people are friendly to you. (Don't overdo it, one message each turn is more than enough). I don't trust players who don't react to diplo. (And you shouldn't trust them :) ). Haven't heard anything from me ever? And I have large armies next to your lands, expect a communications blackout :). Unless we have a NAP. I wouldn't break those. That is a wanker move.

- Second, look at the battle reports, adjust your tactics to the tactics your enemy uses. If he doesn't have any archers, skip the anti archery spells. If he constantly sends flanking units, put some strong blockers at the flanks and a quick attack rear in the middle. (So you could kill his commanders). Does he use fire closest with his archers? Put fliers with attack archers up front (Somebody was bragging that he used this against Baalz in a MP game, and it worked). Sure, it won't win all battles, but it could win some, or reduce your losses, or make it to expensive to continue attacking.

- Don't break NAP's. Unless the other guy casts a I WIN spell.

- Province defense is mostly useless. Always buy one. (So you get a battle report when somebody invades). But most of the times more than 1 is useless. (Not a true rule of course, 1 pd of monkey defense cannot stop a call of winds attack, but 5 can. But 1 pd of Jotunheim pd can easily kill a call of winds attack. But higher PD will be dangerous is you use normal armies. (The pd is to weak otherwise, so easy to kill, so you reach the 75% kills -> your army flees point. Really sucks if you use strong thugs).

- Scouts, use them. Important to at least see some enemy forces a few turns in advance, you know where your enemy has forts, temples etc.

- At war with an enemy but you cannot win? Go for max damage, over tax his lands, use raiders to take out temple's. Use scripting to take out his sacreds/mages.

- Keep your supply lines clear! An enemy doesn't have to totally kill all your units if your units have no place to retreat to. Mid game this can happen without you knowing it, if your opponent has access to teleport spells or flying/hidden thugs/units.

- Mid game: put domes on your important provinces. A flames from the sky on a undomed research province can be deadly. (And remember, while AI might cast one every once in a while, a MP player will casts not one but a dozen in one turn killing everything, never expect just one casting, always expect a lot). (Thanks goes to Dragonrider for allowing me to learn this trick. :( ).

And my final hint. The monkey demons are your friends. Trust us. Would we lie to you?

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

Never trust a monkey. It's one of the two rules I live by.

Oh, and on the "scouts: use them", don't forget indie scouts. They are recruitable in about 10% of provs or so, so you can pump out 20 gold scouts without tying your precious forts up with it. Unless your scouts are really awesome like caelum or pangaea, then you have a conundrum.

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

Never trust a monkey, you go to bed with this:
http://dom3.servegame.com/sprites/units/3376.png
And wake up next to this:
http://dom3.servegame.com/sprites/units/3374.png

Yeah I meant indie scouts. If you have a choice between a mage or a scout. Always choose mage. Mages are mucho importante. (That is why I gave the advice to go after the mages if you cannot win, target large monsters works against some type of mages :))).

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

No, that's alcohol.

Oh, and use mages in battle. Lots of mages. It's probably the biggest difference from how the AI plays. Mages break things.

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

Also, seduction, assassins, usually not worth the time. There are exceptions. But look at this unit:

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Rakshasi

A 350 gold unit who can turn into in a seducer/assassin. Cap only. Not that strong in a assassination. You could use her as an assassin, but the chance of losing her to bodyguards, a well scripted mage, or even patrollers is just to high. It would be hard to get a good return on investment on the 350 gold. By using her in a assassin role you also lose a capital fort turn, a research mage etc.

Better (but not great, it takes blood 7 research to get one) is:
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Samanishada
No seducer, but it is summonable. Reasonably cheap in CBM. ("only" 20 blood slaves). So cheaper, only uses a mage turn* and not a capital fort turn. Already has equipment. (The seduction mage above has no armor). Sure he cannot seduce, nor selfbless. But it is better at killing enemies. Also give him a Spirit helmet and he kills most enemies in one turn. (This tactics is especially great when you use it against enemies siegeing a castle. kill all the commanders and the sieging force autoroutes during a break siege. Also you can sneak the assassins in, so you don't need that many. (As Lanka is a nation with access to air, it can forge air boots).

Yeah, I'm giving away my own tactics here. :) But these are the kind of things you can expect. So if you expect assassins bring some cheap indie commanders along.

Edit:
*: note that this isn't totally true. To get the 20 slaves you also need to spend a few mage turns. But even a few mage turns < capital fort turns.
Also note, not everybody has capital only mages. So not all the capital fort turns are that valuable.
Also note 3, I tested some stuff, and I'm not convinced anymore that the site% directly affects the blood hunt chance. At 0% sites it was still easy to find slaves. So there is that.

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

Heh I dunno now. But I'll make sure to let you guys know if/before I change.

I only read about them in the manual. I kind of liked the whole undead horde army.

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

You may also want to keep in mind that LA Ermor plays very differently from every other nation in the game, and later on there's huge amounts of micromanagement. Plus people are more likely to gang up on you. Edit: Nevermind, the other's covered it better.

Re: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem: All ages! Madness! [Full]
 

Welcome to the unending indecision of picking a nation. It's torture.