Ermor (Early Ages)

Overview

Ermor is a human empire centered around a great city. The Empire has just recently converted to the New Faith and its magical skills are very versatile as mage-priests from the Old Faith still linger.

Background

Ermor is an empire centered around a great city. For centuries it has grown and become more and more influential. Traders and travelers from near and far come to the city. By military campaigns, diplomacy and trade, Ermor has become a power to be reckoned with. By adopting local traditions and beliefs, the Ermorians posed little threat to neighbors and conquered peoples, but this has begun to change. A New God is arising. Old syncretistic faiths and spirit worship were banned by a Prophet dressed in white shrouds. The remnants of his body and shrouds are buried in the Holy City of Eldregate where the adherents of the New Faith are awaiting the arrival of the Reawakening God foreseen by the Prophet. The all-encompassing old state cult of the Numinas still survives, but the Pontifices and Flamen are slowly adopting the New Faith.

Units

Unit Sprite	Unit Name	Type	Cost	Res		Magic
	Standard	Unit	20	14	No	N/A
	Retiarius	Unit	8	1	No	N/A
	Gladiator	Unit	8	1	No	N/A
	Slinger	Unit	7	1	No	N/A
	Scout	Commander	25	4	No	N/A
	Assassin	Commander	60	4	No	N/A
	Centurion	Commander	40	21	No	N/A
	Leve	Unit	10	8	No	N/A
	Accensus	Unit	8	9	No	N/A
	Rosarus	Unit	10	13	No	N/A
	Hastatus	Unit	11	14	No	N/A
	Principe	Unit	14	26	No	N/A
	Triarius	Unit	16	28	No	N/A
	Lizard Auxiliare	Unit	10	11	No	N/A
	Equite	Unit	35	22	No	N/A
	Equite of the Sacred Shroud	Unit (Cap Only)	50	24	Yes	N/A
	Flamen	Commander (foreign)	135	1	Yes	1 1
	Pontifex	Commander (foreign)	100	2	Yes	1 2
	Arch Bishop of the Sacred Shroud	Commander (Cap Only)	135	1	Yes	3
	Bishop of the Sacred Shroud	Commander (Cap Only)	135	1	Yes	2
	Acolyte	Commander	45	1	Yes	1
	Augur	Commander	65	2	No	1 1
	Augur Elder	Commander	210	2	No	2 1 2
	Legatus Legionis	Commander	110	21	No	N/A

Strategy Overview 

• Human Nation
• Fire/Death/Astral focus, with minor access to earth, water, nature
• Foreign Recruit
• Communions
• Evocations - See especially Cascades, Fire Evocations, and Death Evocations
• Skeleton Spam
• Flaming Arrows benefits javelins and slingers
• Cap-only Sacreds may merit Bless, from which sacred mages may also benefit
• Legionnaire-style Infantry with javelins and tower shields

As a fire nation, the most obvious road to your success is your battlemagic. The lowly Augur can be extremely powerful if used correctly. Put them in communion with fireball, falling fires, or astral fires; or drop light of the northern star and have them cast stellar cascades. Elders can stand on top of the communion, to throw down the big stuff, or they can not take part in the communion, which is generally better for death battlemagic, because casting that in communion can fatigue your augurs to death. Banefire is your go to death spell due to its irresistable damage.

While your battle mages deal the damage, your infantry need to be able to take out decoys with their javelins before the artillery comes on line. A handful of trolls or water elementals generally cause a lot of heartache for evocation nations, but not in ermor's case. The fact that you can fill the air with 100+ javelins on turn one goes a long way to mopping up these nuisances that could otherwise torch your stratagy. Flaming Arrows is also huge for ermor, because it affects your javelins, buffing their damage.

Units

Ermor has mostly human troops, with the exception of the Lizard Auxiliare. As a whole, most troops have a shield, some javelins, and very average stat lines.

Equite: Mounted. Has a light lance for a charge bonus, a broad sword, and a hoof attack.

Lizard Auxiliare: Cold blooded. Has swamp survival, and poison resistance +5. Armed with a short sword, a javelin, and has a shield.

Triarus: Old aged. Armed with a long spear and has Formation Fighter. Makes up for being old by having pretty good morale.

Principe: Armed with a short sword and some javelins. Has a flammable tower shield, iron armor and bronze helmet. Pretty much a straight upgrade from the Hastatus.

Hastatus: Armed with a short sword and some javelins. Has a flammable tower shield, iron armor and bronze helmet.

Rorarus: Armed with a spear and some javelins. Has a flammable tower shield, iron armor and bronze helmet. Loses 1 morale, but is otherwise identical to a Hastatus.

Accensus: Armed with a spear and some javelins. Has a flammable tower shield, iron armor and a leather helmet. Has pretty bad morale at 8.

Leve: Armed with a spear and some javelins. Has a shield, iron armor and a leather helmet.

Slinger: Cheap, massable missile troops. Has a sling and a dagger.

Retiarius: Lasts exactly one battle, deserts afterwards. Has a net and a trident. The net is a non damaging weapon that entangles a size 2 or 1 unit, reducing their defence to 0.

Gladiator: Lasts exactly one battle, deserts afterwards. Has a flail.

Standard: Standard 1. Gets a short sword and some javelins. Is also a Formation Fighter.

Equite of the Sacred Shroud: Sacred. Capital only. Mounted. Has Recuperation. Armed with a lance, and has a hoof attack and a broad sword.

Commanders

Scout: A basic human scout that most other nations get. Has Stealthy +50, mountain and forest survival. Armed, if you ever need it, with a dagger and short bow.

Legatus Legionis: Basic Human Commander. Gets 120 leadership.

Centurion: Basic Human Commander. Gets 80 leadership.

Assassin: An Assassin. Has Patience 1. Gets Stealthy +65. Dual wields a poison dagger and a short sword with Ambidextrous 2.

Augur: F1S1. Has Fortune Teller 5. Can lead 15 troops, and 15 magickal troops.

Augur Elder: F2S1D2 with 100% FASD and 10% FASD. Has Fortune Teller 5. Can lead 20 troops, 60 undead and 20 magickal beings.

Acolyte: Sacred. Priest 1. Can lead around 10 troops.

Bishop of the Sacred Shroud: Sacred. Priest 2. Capital only. Recuperation. Leads around 10 troops.

Arch Bishop of the Sacred Shroud: Sacred. Priest 3. Priest 3. Capital only. Slow to recruit. Healer 1.Recuperation Can lead around 10 troops.

Pontifex: Sacred. Priest 2 with F1. Can only be recruited in a province with a temple and a lab, but no fort.

Flamen: Sacred. Priest 1 with F1 with 100% FAWEN. Can only be recruited in a province with a temple and a lab, but no fort.

Pretender Designs

Ermor gets a 20 point discount on the Statue of War, the Titan of Love, and the Divine Emperor.

There are a few ways Ermor can go with it's pretender, either boosting it's strengths, or shoring up its weaknesses. Unlike some nations, there is nothing that the pretender can provide that Ermor cannot live without, which give an Ermorian player some leeway in choosing their stratagy. On the other hand, as is often the case, there are more things you want on your pretender than you can get.

For one thing, Ermor is well placed to benefit from an awake combat pretender. In particular their sacred shroud priests can heal afflictions, which mean a SC pretender will not loose all his value on the battlefield when he racks up afflictions during initial expansion. The earth serpant is a good option, since you will probably not have cold scales, and the dragons are also good options, as is the Virtue.

The Equites of the Sarced Shroud are also a very viable sacred to hang a blessing on. They can expand very well with a major blessing, and serve to boost your power in the early game, before your battlemagic can come online. The strongest blessing for the Equites is probably a major water blessing, on a pretender chassis like the Titan of Rivers, the Titan or the Sea or the Old Man of the Sea. A major fire blessing is also viable though. The Equites come out a bit weaker, but a powerful fire mage can be very useful, and you can get the blessing with very good scales on the Statue of War. A minor Earth blessing can also be helpful to your flamen.

Finally, Ermor loves really strong scales, and a scales build can be viable. You suffer in the early game compared to your other options, but you can snowball into a huge economy and army. A good option for scales is the Divine Emperor for a bit of magic diversity with your scales, or the Statue of Order for a pure scales build.

In terms of your choice of scales, there is quite a bit of leeway, but in general Order over Turmoil, Productivity over Sloth, Heat over Cold, Misfortune over Luck, and Magic over Drain. It's also worth noting that the nation suffers from lacking the Earth/Astral crosspath, and to a lesser extent the Water/Nature crosspath.

Strategy Guides 

Links to pages where people can submit their own in-depth guides

• Nation: EA Ermor - Strategy Guide
• Writer: itwastuesday
• Location: http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/a-quick-pictureless-draft-of-an-ea-ermor-guide