Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Ermor, Ashen Empire

'''Braaaaaaains! Moooooore braaaaaaaaains!'''

The catastrophe has finally overcome the living. The land is blasted and dismal; the unholy energies over the affected lands now slay the living en masse. The dead rise in vast numbers to conquer, while all but the most foolish flee before them.

National Features
Dominion kills population and raises undead depending on dominion strength and unburied corpses. Provinces with forts provide better units, and after the Soul Gate is open temples attract holy units.

Units and Commanders
Ermor has no national units. All of them are summoned by conjuration or dominion.

National Summons

 * Unit: Gems z
 * Description

Scale Design
Undead grow depending on the dominion and unburied corpses you have. Set dominion strength around 9 or 8, Sloth 3, Death 3, Turmoil 3, Luck 3 and Magic 3.

Pretender Design
The pretender god must be awake and have at least 3 poins of death to be able to summon the Ermorian clerics and mages. No matter who you pick, make sure he's undead and has a long life, otherwise he'll catch a disease when you start casting global curses.

With the huge amount of points you should have available, try to get a lvl 9 death immortal god. Astral magic is a nice addition to be able to cast Nether Bolt and Nether Dart. Blood and Nature are pretty much useless since your units are very weak and population very low.

A rainbow mage might be a good choice to boost gem income early in the game and expand quickly, but in the late game you may be unable to cast the really cool Ermorian Spells which require up to Death lvl 9 (Soulgate, Utterdark, Burden of time).

A blessing strategy is complicated to design. Your god should be a one-man army, and your strong holy units won't be available until the late game. Astral is not a bad choice for ermor since magic resistance protects your undead from banishment. Air shield is also good since undead tend to die rather quickly against archers.

Expansion
Make sure your dominions expands far and wide. The negative scale will make enemy armies starve and cripple the economy of your opponents.

This will cause them to gang up on you. Expand aggressively, pillage enemy provinces and fall back. Repeat until the entire world has very low income and resources.

Build temples deep down in your territory to increase maximum dominion (5 temples increase it by 1). Don't forget to add at least 1 point to defense on all provinces. Undead fall appart and die if left on the battlefield with no leader.

Research Order
Use Spectators to summon each other and research. Leave a Dusk Elder around your lab just in case you need to summon more of them.

Get enchantment 3 to get Raise Dead and Raise Skeletons. Then switch to Conjuration to get the national summons, Well of Misery and Soul Gate.

Thaumaturgy allows you to cast Burden of Time (Makes every unit in the planet to wither and die. Your undead are not affected by it). Unfortunately this spell will make everyone gang up on you so it's pretty much a self-impossed death sentence in MP.

Alteration 8 is nice to get Disintegrate (Death 2), which will make every single mage you have extremely deadly. Utterdark is nice too.

If your mage is not very skilled in Death magic you will have to spend some time researching construction to cast some of the stronger spells.