EA Ermor revisited.

[chrispedersen]

The more I play this nation the more I love it. I'm too lazy to develop a complete guide; I'll let others pick up on the thread. But heres a few comments for the early game; it assumes CBM - but not much changes under vanila.

Ermor:

Weaknesses: Old mages. No national spells. No SC chassis other than recruitables. Poor access to water, astral, nature. No access to blood. Mages easy victim to Magic Duel.

Pluses: Explosive fast early growth. Great recruitable everywhere mages. Great gp/rp ratio. Great commanders. Great City.

OK: Scales: O3 S1 H1 L-2, M+3.
Pretender: Sleeping Forge Lord. A4 S4 N4 E4 Dom 3! You can go with a rainbow if you like. But there is a method to my madness. You can also do S4W4N4E4. Easier clams. But you lose out on air boosters and staffs of elemental mastery.

Ever look at Ermors gladiators? Of course not. No one ever does. But they are the trick to lightning out of the gate.

Heres one of the many mantras for EA-Ermor. Forts >> mages.
You see mages are build anywhere. Your troops are good enough (and cheap enough) you don't *need* early mage support.

Back to the Gladiators. If you took my suggest scale build, and are playing with something with reasonable starting positions - your starting build will be.....

Pontifex and ... around 5-8 leves. And the rest those beautiful gladiators. Pontifexs are GREAT commanders. They lead 45 troops, are mages, and clerics.. but more importantly.. they take no resources.....

Sure I know what you're thinking .. but but.. horrible attrition.... The rest of your first turn is... prophetize your commander, send out the scout. Nothing fancy.

Next turn - send out your two groups. Practise a bit with gladiators sp.

This starting mix does well against archers, cavalry, barbs... oddly enough watch out for wolf warriors. But generally, just pick the two weakest provinces.. and take them. Set your pontifex to something like... fflies, socourage x2... hold hold stay behind.

Repeat this tactic a turn or two. This gets you through turn 4-5by which time your resources (yes even with sloth 1) are sitting around 400. Switch over to purely leve production. Build forts in swamps (you have lizard auxiliars - its a slight advantage.. but use it). Mountains are good too. Really, you're not needing money income so much as

a). Places to build mages.
b). Places to stage troops from. After the first few turns - its faster to build a fort than it will be to continue ferrying troops. And if you build anything other than leves, asc's, maybe a rot.. you're wasting time. Ie., no cav, hastatis. Who needs morale when you have pontifexes.

Research? Conjuration till Dark Knowledge. Construction till 4. Then book to Enchant for flaming arrows. Back to Conjuration... but I digress.

One of the great reasons to take neither growth nor death - take a look for death in some of your provinces. Sometime around spring of the new year your pretender will awaken, you'll build your first augur elder alchemize gems and Dark knowledge. Death is a priority. Repeat that a few times. Compared to most nations you've got few arrows in your quiver. And it all gets fueled by death and fire gems.

Speaking of fire gems - feel free to alchemize them most of the first year to build forts... Oh and send that Forge Lord out with a good guard to look for sites. You're hosed if he dies, and your troops are cheap.....

Send him out until you get good earth, air, and nature income. Use that to guide your territories for search.

Ok.. here's your next few tricks..... Right around the time you get Con2 Cons-2... you're going to be doing well in provinces/forts.. and people are going to start noting that research...

So you are going to start cranking on research.. Don't you dare think elders. Rather - build your elders in spring.. and your augurs the rest of the time... 80 gold for 6 rp... popping up at every fort....

Strive for a ration of around 5 augurs for each elder. Later on those augur fired communions are going to be important. See, I did say you were victimized by magic duel... much better an augur bites the bullet no? Just as a side note do remember that they are fortune tellers. Well worth the time to spread em out a bit...

Sooo what are you bringing your Forge boy back for? Well forging, of course... See your next major weakness is SC's. Now the forts will help with those.. because usually an SC will choose MR over wall shaker. AoE weapon over gate cleaver. And if he doesn't .. you'll be there to punish him.

How? You are the forge Lord man. With a 75% (yes I know thats not exactly right).. bonus.. you will *churn* out anti SC items. And with the paths I had you take.. you've got something to meet every challenge.

Side Note: Somewhere the first year - build a flamen.. till you get a water random .. and send him out site searching. Useful for boots of quickness.

Some people would rather have S4 rather than F4. S4 lets you build crystal coins, crystal shields. Forge Lord + coin gets you ROS, and then ROW.

Other people want Blood. Personally I think your pretender is going to be way to busy to be an effective way to kick start a blood economy.

Some specific items to consider: Botox Bows. Eye shields. Firebrands, Charcoal shields. Ring of tame lightning. all at 75% off.

Mantra #2. Expect to be behind on research year one. But if you're behind on research year 3 .. you're in deeeeeeep doo doo.

Sooo you get con4.. you've got great gem income.... why not race to artifacts? Waste of time. Race instead up the conj tree... you *really* want the ER chassis.. and of course Tartarians.

OK.. next few things to look for...Flamens can get you fever fetishes. You have competent healers. Ok.. they're not competent.. But you did start with a low dominion didn't you? So on the turns they're not healing you can use em to preach. And besides.. the forge lords a cripple. Why not heal him while he's forging?

Speaking of flamen - Row+Staff of Elemental mastery + F/W flamen - breaks you into water. Which is why you took the A4E4S4N4, right?

Other things to look for. Flaming arrows. You need it. You have fire mages.. fire gems. All your troops have javelins. And slingers are to die for. Seriously... flaming arrows + slingers will bring you half way through the midgame.

Communions, and anti SC thugs get you the other half. Hurry up with those tartarians.

Well, I'm about talked out. A few notes. The other reason you search with your god - is to find sites that will give you some diversity. Nature is easy to find - but you need him to jumpstart it.

N4.. also gives you GoR. Use it.

Remember Banefire, and banefire archers. If you look likely to be jumped fast... (mostly unlikely, as there are much easier targets, usually).. evo gives you fireball.

A cheap early trick is an assassin with a skel talisman. Got nothing better to do- cheap way to take out a province. Or Drop a thorn staff on him, maybe a eye shield.

Sooooo...

1. Blitz with your cheap gladiators.
2. Build forts.
3. Site search. Death Death death death death.
4. Transition to augurs Research like your life depends on it.
(it does).
4.b Astral Coin, Ros, ROW. Staff of Elemental. These things will let you build almost anything.
5. Be tricky in the midgame. communions. Reverse communions. Thugs. Flaming arrows.
6. ER royalty. Tartarians. Banefire. Try to get Goh or chalice - won't happen.. Thats ok. The're good thugs anyway.