Ermor Themes

[Jurri]

Oh, the centurions certainly can take indep provinces alone. The holding is for both letting the enemy troops spread a little (you know, heavy infantry is a bit slower than light, and cavalry is faster than anything) and making it harder for the opposing archers to hit. The point would be that the centurion/s routs the enemies one squad at a time, without facing them all at a time. (Turin might have another reason for it, though, but that's why I do it.)

Works on most independent settings, at least to an extent, although as the strength of the indeps goes up the chances of a centurion dying go up as well. You can add to the force as many centurions as needed, though, since they don't rout even if some die; you could also equip some of them: only some, so that if that particular centurion dies the others can pick up the stuff.

Agreed that anyone would have a hard time beating any undead theme played by an above-average skilled player in a 1v1. I still would rather face SG than AE Ermor or CW Pangaea

[Turin]

thejeff said:
Turin, I'm curious. How do you take provinces with just the centurions? They seem to die pretty easily against any real opposition. What does the holdx5 accomplish?

Pretty much the reasons Jurri stated. Additional points are that your centurion will be able to attack the fleeing units for a longer time, thus getting more xp. And enemy mages/priests have only a very poor chance of hitting him.

And once they get into the HoF they can become really nasty: heroic toughness, battle bellow, quickness or protection are all amazingly useful on them.

Indie strength isn´t that important, the only provinces that you should really stay away from are lizard provinces. Provinces with crossbowmen or heavy cav can be problematic too, they are usually for the prophet centurion or centurions with good heroic abilities.

[Jurri]

Turin said:
Both themes seem to be incredibly strong (if you know how to make money with them) and I doubt anyone could win a 1vs1 vs my SG ermor.

quantum_mechani said:
I don't know, I never considered it much of a problem. If you know you're facing undead, and no other nations, you can adjust your strategy accordingly.

I smell a match brewing How about you guys face off, save each turn and report to the community your findings; I think there's a distinct lack of a detailed, good guide on how to handle undead. Now, I'm sure an archived game like that would be a concrete tutorial! (Even though my money's on Turin Still, even then you'd see what's the worst that can happen, which is perhaps even more valuable than a step-by-step instruction... So either way it's bound to be interesting!)

[quantum_mechani]

Jurri said:

I smell a match brewing How about you guys face off, save each turn and report to the community your findings; I think there's a distinct lack of a detailed, good guide on how to handle undead. Now, I'm sure an archived game like that would be a concrete tutorial! (Even though my money's on Turin Still, even then you'd see what's the worst that can happen, which is perhaps even more valuable than a step-by-step instruction... So either way it's bound to be interesting!)

Heh, I'm always open for a 1vs.1 game with anyone.

[Turin]

Jurri said:

I smell a match brewing How about you guys face off, save each turn and report to the community your findings; I think there's a distinct lack of a detailed, good guide on how to handle undead. Now, I'm sure an archived game like that would be a concrete tutorial! (Even though my money's on Turin Still, even then you'd see what's the worst that can happen, which is perhaps even more valuable than a step-by-step instruction... So either way it's bound to be interesting!)

We did two matches, one on the nile with quantum as tien´chi , one on urgaia as c´tis desert tombs. The first game was pretty anticlimatic, I got a pretty good start and my prophet got heroic toughness. On turn 15 qm tried to invade, but my wraith centurions slaughtered his army and the game was over at that point.
My pretender was a f4a3s3e3d6n1 dom 10 lich queen. qm chose a dom10 lich. I saved my turns, but it was a pretty boring game.

The second took place on urgaia and was far more interesting.
I got a really crappy start, got a useless ability on my prophet (battle prowess) and had to wait until turn 20 to find my second death gem generating site, generating only 11 death gems/turn until that point. I never found firegems either, so I had money problems too.
So I just put temples everywhere I went, conquered provinces with my centurions and created 4 raiding squads with spectators and freespawns.
qm´s offensive consisted of an army with 9 sauromancers and tomb wyrms, they managed to knock over a few temples and kill quite a lot of freespawns.
But eventually he split them and a wraith centurion was able to kill off half the sauromancers. My raiding squads were running rampant in his provinces and I managed to capture one of his three forts. At that point we declared the game over.