played ermor since dom1.
i like ashen empire a lot its one of the reasion that makes this game so fantastic and innovative, the other is R'yleh, now if there would be new functions for the interface to controll all these free spawn chaff better it would be gold. can be really annyoing on big maps.
Ashen Empire in dom3 is weak at the beginning of a game or on smaller maps. ON big maps its possible to pillage vast amounts of porovinces ruining everyones economy and force everyone to use food supply items or units that do not need to eat. ermor LA, however starts out really weak, not in single though but in MP its easy to exploit their low magic res chaff with banishments and priests. dust to dust is an ubber cheap spell anti undead spell availible with just 1 death mage pic. and this is much worser than banishment it ignores magic resistence. take an undead prince and see him killing dozens of priests and he never gets a scratch due to high magic resistence, additonally i use him with either magic res item or cast magic res as a astral spell. all my pretenders for ashen empire do start with high astral and death magic.
so you need a good SC to survive early part of the game, taking something else is a risk in non SP games that ia m very sure of but inever got banished back to the underworld to hell must be fun too
later soulgate is really fantastaic, i casted it in many games now with high dominion you get ethereal undead(also ethereal ermor legions) with good stats and no "never heals" ablity, so they do regenerate hp too. problem with it is conj8 and cost a ton too.
for scales all -3(taking cold here, and magic drain just 2) and +3 luck. 3misfortune may give more design points but i am sure its not worth it on bigger maps. maybe smaller maps. on bigger maps with high luck they get extra gold, gem income and so on. the zealots and millitia are very annyoing...so i usually send them to death quickly to get rid of the annoying upkeep.
my overall strategy with them so far is to summon a lot of dusk elders to get the most needed research up and scout the enemy if he is random to know his nation, its midgard or similar glamour abuse i go for enchant4 - Behemoth to trample them. alteriation is pretty much a no brainer with SC to have on at least lvl3 if he does not start with ethereal. rest goes into constr.4 to get skull mentor for quick research, its needed for magic drain scale anyways. rest goes into conjuration. additonal i make asap 2 groups of dusk elders with allt he 4 elements in magic paths + astral and rarely blood to search magic sites more quickly as it takes too long with just pretender on medium-large maps.
my pretender had 4 nature, 6 astral, death9. with this you can try to go for the lictor summons and cast htem with black laurels still gives 2 additional lictors. they are all heavy armored and sacred and astral gives them most needed +2 magic res, with drain scale its +3magic res.
usually its good enough on big maps to just conquer your nearest lands and pillage whats far away and slowly go backwards to your capitol using a scorched earth method, it gives gold for more temples, labs and castles and ruin everyones world except for yourself. with soulgate up soonish and high dominion the game will be in your favour quickly.
except you get obliterated with dust to dust or wither bones....really unfair spells
btw, i think dusk elders and arch bishops can be a bit cheaper...this hurts a lot early on. i am not sure to survive a rush with that? maybe pillage home province and surroundings take sphinx and using a lot of ghouls to defend with?
anyways to summarize, i feel AE is a lot weaker now in the early phase of the game. and yeah, R'yleh and MA ermor is maybe a lesser risk than taking AE.
also want to make a suggestion, namely. i would like to see more pretender choices here for LA Ermor. Since they are really focused on a powerful pretender more choices are logical. i think Ashen Empire could have a more powerful and special Prince of Death and i wonder why jortundheim/niefelheim always got the draco lich and bog mummy but not ermor where it suits much more. its nice to have the lich queen but more choices would be more fun here. i think we have her since dom1.
i know lich, ghost king or lich queen is the most obvious choice, but PoD with immortaly ablity added and a better special ability(just gives like 1-3 longdead/turn) would have been more fun, just for ashen empire.....or else is just taking some lich and casting tatarian gate and make someone with a lot hp your prophet.
Re: LA Ermor - myth, legend, or overrated tripe?
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