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2. Cast Lichcraft and empower them so they can summon tartarians, give marshmasters Skull Staff and Skullface to cast ghost rider and manifestation. Summon Bane Lords and Wrath Lords, legion of wights. 3. Marshmaster are also good against thugs/SC with frozen hearth and tangle vines if used properly. One of the best mages in the games in my opinion.
Holy 3, capital only, can lead 120 troops. Can cast divine blessing and smite. It¿s very interesting the damage 4-5 can do with smite, but your really want them to defend against undead, demons and dominion kill. Very strong priests, buy a couple of them when you build a second fort, if nothing use them to site search for holy sites. Empoisoner Assassin, capital only, D1 N1. Can raise skeleton during assassination. Not bad to have a couple of them laying around. They would be incredible good if not capital only, another slight problem with C¿tis is that they have no national spies. 8.16.2.3.3 Miasma The main problem with MA C¿tis is their disease dominion. While it does hurt your enemy when he invades, and reduces his income by 5% for every dominion point, it hurt you the most. This means it is very hard to use indie mages and to summon Elemental Royalty and such and almost impossible to use indie troops. That¿s the reason you don¿t want a strong dominion, other players feel threatened by it and will attack you, you also don¿t want too week dominion either so you don¿t get dominion killed. C¿tis requires careful-dominion-planning, you need to relay on both your and enemy dominion. Dominion 6 or 7 would be best probably. Another thing to keep in mind, Stone Idols can selectively reduce your dominion in provinces with useful indies, that's astral and earth again. 8.16.2.3.4 Pretender choices Although MA C¿tis has a variety of pretender to choose, half of them are useless. They can only use lifeless, cold blooded and swamp survival pretenders. My suggestion would be to take a strong astral pretender, one that can cast wish, and the reason is this. MA C¿tis has a capacity to clam forge like crazy. You only need to give a W2 marshmaster a water bracelet. By mid-late game you should be the absolute magic powerhouse casting several wishes and summoning several tartarians per turn. But you need to be careful, clamming will leave you with little nature gems and that means no GOR for tarts. So don¿t waste gems on Monster Toads and other useless stuff. Besides astral take earth for crystal coin ( a step closer to mind hunt ) and summon golem, a very rare SC that isn¿t affected by your disease dominion, also cutting on heat/sloth should give you enough points to diversify your magic, so air, fire, earth and astral are the paths you want. The only rainbow pretender to chose is the serpent king, can go with that useful for site searching , but I prefer the Oracle, my favorite pretender. You can also afford a SC pretender to help you expand quickly. Also another reason to go heavy on astral is to be able to wish for The Chalice if you don¿t forge it first. You need the Chalice for tartarians, and to forge Ring of Sorcery and Ring of Wizardry, you¿ll need those for summoning tartarians. As for the paths you don¿t have, astral you need, earth you need, air is useful, fire not so much. You can get a small blood economy going with tartarians also, small. 8.16.2.3.5 National Summons Sirrush
Sacred, Conjuration level 5 astral 1 nature 1, 10 astral pearls. I wouldn¿t waste astral gems on them, for EA C¿tis they are worth considering but you most likely will not have a bless strategy with MA C¿tis, and besides that you don¿t have any astral income to begin with. But water bless would be the best probably with their 3 attacks. Monster Toads Sacred unit conjuration level 5 nature 2, 8 nature gems for 3 toads. Again, work better with EA C¿tis and a water 9 bless. Save your nature gems don¿t waste them on monster toads, you will need them for items and GOR. Monster Toads can trample, work good with the C¿tis special ( mentioned above with the marshmasters ), have poison cloud so watch where you place them, while your troops have poison resistance it is not 100 so you are vulnerable to that also. They have terrible defense protection and magic resistance so watch out for disintegrate soul slay, paralyze¿ My opinion, not worth it. Couatl Level 3 nature level 3 astral mage, level 2 priest, conjuration level 6 nature 1 astral 1 Summon needs 40 Nature Gems!!! But worth it. Their main use if for heavy lifting via communion and the most important thing, to forge the Chalice, give them a moonvine bracelet for that. Scorpion Man Sacred unit conjuration level 8 earth 1 fire 1 summon, 12 earth gems. Fairly good units, a little hard to summon with C¿tis, but you have your pretender to do it if needed. They have a plague bow and a gaze of fear for ranged weapons, and in melee they have a pincer, a stinger, and an enchanted sword. EA C¿tis is better with them again. I think they are actually better than the scorpion king pretender. Devourer of Souls Sacred unit conjuration level 9 death 6 summon, 30 death gems. Main use, to kill SC. All it takes is one strike and the unlucky enemy is dead, so a burning pearl would be a good thing to give, also don¿t send him alone against anyone, that¿s a quick way to lose 30 death gems, send some shamans to cast tangle wines luck and body ethereal. Devourer is a unique summon, once he dies you can summon him again. Again a bless works good, nature, or water or even fire bless. 8.16.2.3.6 Scales Order/Turmoil C'tis income is increased by 1% per level of dominion, and your main mage force, marshmasters, will need a lot of gold for upkeep, so it it's a good choice to go order 3, but I personally like turmoil more. It's useful because if brings you a lot of gems that help diversify your magic
Not good to go heavy on productivity, is becomes less useful as the game goes on, but sloth 3 can make it very dificult to expand quickly. This really depends on the map size in my opinion, on a big map I recommend sloth 2-3, on a smaller map productivity 1. Heat/Cold Go with a minimum of heat two, because that is your default, but best to go 3 heat because of two reasons, scales are rarely exactly the same everywhere so you will have many provinces with 2 or 3 heat either way, and more points for other scales and pretender, and it affect you less than your enemy. Growth/Death C'tis doesn¿t really need growth, they have no problems with old age and don't need the supplies, so you should probably take a little death. This scale also depends somewhat on your order/turmoil-luck/misfortune scale. Taking death with misfortune is very bad, and death is very damaging in the long run, so take death but not too much. I personally never go over death 2 and I prefer growth for long games. Luck/Misfortune This depends on your order/turmoil scales. But do not take death 3 misfortune 3 under any circumstances, this opens some devastating events. Magic/Drain You can go either way here. C'tis is very good with research and a very strong death nation, thus able to forge a lot of skull mentors, taking drain 2 won't slow you down much and it really gives a lot of extra points, but taking magic 1 will make you the best research nation in the game, no need for magic 3, people rarely take that. I recommend drain 2. 8.16.2.3.7 Thoughts 8.16.2.3.7.1 Diversifying your magic A hard thing to do with MA C¿tis. That¿s why you need to plan ahead with your dominion, all the indie mages will get diseased in your dominion so keep them elsewhere. Using a rainbow pretender is another way to go. You can summon spectres also, maybe lamia queens for blood magic but they are expensive.
Somewhat harder to do with C¿tis. You should use elite warriors for early expansion and back them up with swamp gurads. Can also use the empoisoner to take out indie commander and take a province. Research to enc. 3 fast, both for protection and expanding. Your priorities should be Evocation, thaumaturgy and conjuration 2 for site searching and after that enchantment3 for skeletons and alteration 6 for drain life, soul vortex, frozen hearth, mother oak, luck, body ethereal. Later on when darkness, rigor mortis, and life after death are researched, use them for hard battles with a combination of C¿tis special and soul drain, nether darts and such. Don¿t forget to keep a scout packed up with death, nature, water and astral gems. Terrorize is a great spell also ( careful affects you also so use it with raise skeleton ), but be sure to cut off any provinces the enemy might retreat to. Use cheap battlefield summons like swarm to tie up cavalry for the couple rounds you need. Your main strategy should be tartarian oriented. You will have a somewhat hard middle game, but once you get to tartarians you¿ll be a force to be reckoned with. Well of misery, mother oak and gift of health are the global spells you want, not all of them of course, you wouldn¿t last much. Use stygian paths and feary trod to surprise your enemy. Leprosy for large armies. Arcane Nexus is the end game spell if you take my advice on astral magic, maybe even cast Utterdark since it doesn¿t hurt you as much as other. Your main force will be tartarians and potentially soulless marshmasters and shamans with life after death and thus 100 darkvision. Having golems besides tartarians is good, they are mindless, not undead and not shattered soul 25. Not to mention unaffected by your dominion. But it¿s somewhat an investment to make a SC from a golem. Use them for destroying temples and trampling armies with boots of Behemoth, and when you¿re done just cast returning, don¿t forget to keep those two extra astral gems for the spell. 3E2A Tartarians are the once you want and the once with the enchanted sickle since they have 3 2 2 random paths. If your lucky a 5 water or fire for artillery spells, or maybe even 5 or 7 astral!!! That¿s a master enslave in the first turn if you have a crystal coin and a astral cap. 8.16.2.3.7.3 Anti SC tactic Drain life is a great spell for SC, so is frozen hearth, and disintegrate also. All these spells can be cast by marshmaster. Don¿t forget the Devourer of Souls. Charm is only nature 3, you will have many N3 mages. A lucky marshmaster can cast vengeance of the dead with a starshine cap ( +1 astral ) or with a Crystal Coin. 8.16.2.3.7.4 Getting into water You shouldn¿t be considering this until late game when you summon your amphibious tartarians, but in case you are caught in a premature war with a sea nation you should have little trouble getting into water. You have a good water income with C¿tis, so you can cast Naiad warrior ( good unit, has awe+3, recuperating and has heavy protection ), sea King¿s court, he grant his troops water breathing, once you get a water province, you can summon Asp turtles, kraken and Queen of elemental water ( very strong in water has a 30% regeneration I think ) As for items, sea king¿s goblet let¿s you bring 50 units under water, ring of water breathing for thugs/SC, and robe of the sea for water mages. You won¿t even need all that, you can cast life after death to get soulless mages and priests that can enter water, and reanimate undead for support. C¿tissian troops have a somewhat higher MG than regular troops, 12. And can communion or give boosters for anti-magic which will give you 16 MR. That can be enough even for R¿lyehs mind blast. As for underwater spells you can cast all your enemy can, shark attack, living water and all other spells. 8.16.2.3.7.5 Blood magic and blood hunting No point in giving your pretender blood magic since you don't really need it. You don¿t need blood magic much or at all, but you can get there if you want. You can summon Lamia queens ( I don¿t recommend, like I said expensive and they don¿t always have blood magic ), and tartarians. Problem with them is shattered soul 25 which makes it difficult to blood hunt with all that pillaging and lab destroying. But you can use them for initial blood hunting and empower regular mages to continue the work. Since C¿tis is good with research you should get tartarians by turn 50. Another way to go is to have all your commanders that aren¿t doing nothing blood hunt. Yes they can blood hunt. They just have a very small success rate, something like 5% if I remember correctly, read it in some other thread. But having 20 commander blood hunting gets you there faster. However people rarely do this. As for using blood magic, you don¿t need it for summoning Devil and other demonic troops and SC. You will have a heck of a time defending your tartarians from Flambeau and 3x damage against undead/demon items as it is. But having blood to forge all those wonderful unique items is great! The Gift of Kurgi, Sceptre of Corruption, Procas's Axe of Rulership in combination with the other one to get arm chop effect. Another great combination is Twin Spear for call lesser horror and The Oath Rod of Kurgi for horror mark. Do you see where I¿m going with this? Also don¿t forget to put boots of quickness. Heart Finder Sword is also good, the name says it all. Infernal Sword ( One of the best items in the game ), struck by it will get you banished to Inferno, so no more SC. Harvest Blade, has a AOE attack, and leg chop effect!!! And having blood magic is good for SC, with Claws of Kokytos and Infernal prison, don¿t forget life for a life either. Being able to send horrors is also a greats tactic, both for taking provinces and taking out SC¿s. You can also cast blood vengeance on some tartarians that have blood magic when you attack. Also maybe something worth mentioning. C¿tis PD is terrible, it consists of militia (mostly) and city guards. You get a couple of slave warriors after PD 20 I think, but that¿s just terrible you don¿t even get a shaman! So no point wasting gold on PD. The highest I ever go is 5, just so I don¿t lose a province to call of the winds. 8.16.2.4 8.16.3 LA Ctis, tomb kings 8.17 Ermor 8.17.1 EA Ermor -> EA Ermor has access to excellent magical diversity. Your augurs are very strong in death, fire and astral. Some of your other mages provide you with nature, earth and (if I recall) water, meaning you lack access only to air. Your pretender can fill in this gap.
Make a pretender that has Astral, you will not be sorry late game. -> And like Arco they got priest which heal afflictions. So you can send your lovely pretender to battle without being afraid to catch one. -> EA Ermor is fairly effective but i think they are not the invincible legions that the Roman-themed nations of Ermor/Pythium possess in the Middle Era. EA Ermor has a few oddball things about it; Death mages, old age, no Death gem income, Priests that heal (albiet quite ineffectively, only about 1/3 to 1/4 as well as a Arco Priestess), medium Cavalry, Gladiators. Gladiators are so effective it's almost always worth throwing a few in any battle where you know some casualties are inevitable (against Cavalry/Elephants, or Blood Vines). It's a bit of a micro headache to keep the "Gladiator reserves" stocked and up with the main army, though. -> A Ermor is pretty interesting to me. You have great mages, but the Augur Lords are not really battlemages, they are more summoning/RP guys. Your battlemages are the Augurs and Flamens. Your summoning strength is in fire and death, but you have no death gem income. You have great astral gem income, but not a ton of quality astral mages. Your military is pretty good. You have good infantry, but I find myself making primarily Principes. Gladiators have niche uses, but they survivability is so low, they have little use far from forts. Your Equiites are good, but not great. What is fascinating are the sacreds, the only sacreds are the Shroud Cav which seems a bit weak. What I have been doing is using Leves in front set to fire and flee, so they get off a shot before the battle lines collide. The main battle line of principes sprinkled with gladiators is set to hold and attack. So far, my casualties have been light, unless I run up against enemy cav. I have yet to put this up against anyone with a mage so I don't know how we will fare against any magic heavy nation. Something I was wondering was whether or not to take an Air bless, don't you get a precision bless with air, or is it just air shield with air bless? What I was thinking was with all the mages, if I could increase their precision, their fire magic could be pretty devastating in combat. Does anyone else have any other bless strategy for EA Ermor? Not saying it is the best way to go, but the most puzzling for me. Otherwise, I think my long term strategy is to summon some undead and focus on upgrading some of my astral paths for some late game magic. Battlemages are going to be augurs and flamen. I just don't know what to do with the sacreds. -> Augur Elders not battlemages? I beg to disagree. Even without any death gems you can raise dead all day long. Get one of those astral banners and you can go about castin some wicked death armor-negating spells. There is not much of a reason to make a strong bless with EA Ermor although of course 9F/9W pretty much works with any and every sacred in the game. Ermor lacks a bit in the magic diversity, though. I don't think it can get above a 2S caster naturally, only 1N/1A/1E. With natural healing, i think EA Ermor pretty much begs from some kind of early/sleeping SC strategy. You can get away with a sleeping SC pretender because Ermors' starting forces are decent enough to expand on their own a bit until he awake 8.17.2 MA Ermor -> The basics in a no particular order: Any commander, even independent ones, with atleast one level of Holy can reanimate undeads. So take advtantage of this and recruit lots of priests outside your capitol to make expendable chaff troops. [Note, that statement sounds dubious] Your best low level thugs would be Banes, Conjuration lvl 3. A good chasis with enough MR to resist banish from low level priests. A lucky pendant (5 astral gems) and whatever 10+ damage weapon you can afford will make a good thug against anything that doesn't have trample. Doom Glaive being a favourite of mine. This works until lvl 7+ summons shows up on the scene anyway. Conjuration lvl 2 also gives you Dark knowledge which should help in improving your death gem income. Enchantment lvl 1 will give your mages the ability to spamm undeads on the battlefield. lvl 4(?) gives you Behemots. A well known battlefield tactic for Ermor and Pythium is to make a large block of Principes and place an astral mage or two in the middle. Then cast the Alteration 3 spell Body Etheral. This gives you etheral troops with armor and good stats! Give the principes the order to Fire closest, they will throw their javelins at their closest target and then engage. You need to make a decision what your Middle/Late game is going to be though. Either you invest in astral magic with Thaumaturgy at lvl 5+ for Soulslay and Enslave mind spells. Or you try to get Conjuration lvl 9 and bring out some Tartarians. There are some nice Death evocation spells, but I have yet to train evocation beyond lvl 3 with ermor until turn 60+, thinking that Conjuration or Enchantment is more important for them. Death and Astral spells are your strengths. Ethereal principes with some decked out banes as a vanguard, a horde of low undead chaff to wear the enemy down and all of them backed up by 3-4 unholy priests is a pretty standard Ermor tactic. Magic item production can be in other paths with some creative pretender construction. Your "artillery" will be lacking until quite well into the game. But cheap commanders with decent precision score can be decked with scepters of command (F2, construction lvl 4) for some decent long range firepower. You will need either your pretender or an indy mage to make these though. -> Also, you can use the Black Servants from Conjuration 1 for some early game action if you can get them some armors. They are ethereal, and that helps a lot. You'll probably won't have enough gems or mages to make armor, but e.g. Earth would be wonderful. As with most undead, they have Encumbrance 0, and thus won't suffer from heavy armors' fatigue. [Comment: If you go with Black servants, you really need to put an anti magic amulet on them. Otherwise even independents will banish them pretty darn quick. A Black servant with a Doom glaive, Fire plate, anti magic amulet makes a good thug. Thats quite a bit of gem investment in one lvl 1 summon though. Or maybe Im just paranoid, after having lost 3 of these to an independent lvl 1 priest in my last game on turn 12... :p ] -> Death Magic has a good number of spells for stealth raiding squads. I use them mainly to pick on provinces with temples in them where you only have to deal with PD. A Spectre commander with Shades, Shade Beasts, Dispossed Spirits, and Ghosts are all available at D3 and Conj 6. They're all stealthy and ethereal and Chill 3 I believe, and Spectre's are pretty good mages. -> A few notions for Broken Empire: * Don't generally want Death scales. * Learn to use your priests to reanimate. Follow your armies to reanimate armed soulless before the bodies go stale or the peasants bury them. * Use national priest spells to improve the performance of the undead, especially the soulless, from totally incompetant to semi-decent fodder. * IIRC, note that a holy-4 prophet can be had, giving access to better reanimation and battlefield spells. * Also, the astral magic can be used to increase the holy power of high priests during combat, giving them access to higher undead-enhancing priest spells. * Develop combined arms tactics with a mix of different types of undead and living troops. -> You can also use Antimagic, the Astral 3 spell to further protect your undead units. -> Don't forget the sacred troop : vestales (undead and ethereal) and lictors (living ones), there are pretty cheap and quick to gather in your capital at the beginning. Vestales need Unholy blessing and lictors blessing. -> I haven't had the opportunity to try BE Ermor in Dom3 yet, but I was a big fan in Dom2. I second most of these suggestions (I'm a little unimpressed with the Vestals, though) but would add that Ghouls (from the reanimate spell) make great fodder/arrow catchers while your javelin troops clean up. Your cheaper mages can command the ghouls while they cast Nether Darts or various Astral battlefield magic. This tactic might be a little less useful now that temples are so expensive, though. I liked depopulating unproductive provinces with a half-dozen cheap priests and using the ghouls to take down the easier indie provinces. I'll check back here in this thread to see how this works in Dom3... Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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