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  #1  
Old January 13th, 2004, 12:08 PM

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Default Black Forest - Ulm

Alright; I've had a few runs with the new Black Forest Theme and I have a few questions.

First of all, I love the theme. Rangers of Ulm, Wolfherds, and Ghoul Guardians are all extremly strong.

The theme has quite a few positive points, but my main question is the speed at which you can get a Vampire Count and equipment to create the hyperquick indy supercombatant.

All you need is a Horror Helmet, Pendant of Luck, Barkskin Amulet.

I've gotten a Vampire Count and that equipment at Turn 8. Albiet in order to do that you have to sacrifice some of your initial growth ( I had only 6 Provinces, including my home province ). But he is basically an additional army, and on turn 11 I had another with the same equipment. When Construction 4 rolls around you can send them to a lab and upgrade with Anti-magic amulets and then you are starting to cook with gas.

I was just wondering if this was planned. As I can see it; you can, without much effort make quite strong SC's with Black Forest at about 15, without sacrificing much in the way of any production or research.

FYI, Vampire Counts start with: Regeneration, Flying, Ethereal, Immortal, Stealth, 2 Death, 2 Blood, and cost 44 Blood Slaves

Edit: Oh yeah, for some of those without access or informational purposes. Vampires start with Life Drain, and have 0 Encumberance

[ January 13, 2004, 10:44: Message edited by: Zen ]
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  #2  
Old January 13th, 2004, 12:28 PM

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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

I think it has been done on purpose, as this is the start spell of Black Forest. All you need is 44 slaves and a pretender with death & blood, so no wonder the first vampire lord comes rather early.

I'm not saying its not overpowered, but it is just doubtful that IW didnt knew they handed a combo on a silver plate

I have a question on BF Ulm : Does the storyteller "lightningrod" effect against bad events are cumulated? What I mean is, does having 5 storytellers is better in your capital than only one, if you want to be protected against Lady Misfortune?
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  #3  
Old January 13th, 2004, 12:36 PM

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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

I don't know, I haven't had a *single* bad effect yet in 30 turns with Order 3/Misfortune 3 with at least 1 Fortune Teller in my Capital/Castles.

I understand they handed it to us on a silver platter, I am just wondering why they gave us the combo when they were stepping away from it with Blood and Supercombatants in general.

I also don't know exactly how much beta testing they have and whether they have enough 'push to the extreme' as far as balance to see everything. Considering how quickly they are shot out, I'm more than a little worried to have someone with Black Forest coming at me turn 8 without access to Paralyze (which Black Forest has easy access to as well) as many nations/themes do not.

Edit: Also Pocus, the Count makes thralls, which are nice free arrow fodder (if you don't have enough wolves)

[ January 13, 2004, 10:39: Message edited by: Zen ]
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  #4  
Old January 13th, 2004, 01:29 PM
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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

DOH! I just tried the theme once, and when I realized there were no earth mage to recruit, I just thought "How am I supposed to cast Legions of Steel? It's nigh to impossible with Iron Faith, it's even worse with Black Forest!"

BTW, the 160 gold mage comes with stealth (+30). Wow! The regular spies are put to shame.

So finally we have a theme requiring misfortune. Any recruitable heroes? Any Black Forest-only ones? Heh, we might never know.
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  #5  
Old January 13th, 2004, 03:09 PM

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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

The main problem I have with the theme is that you don't really get choices, you pretty much *have* to max out VC's and free allies. And use a few Ghoul Guardians against independents early...

The only question is what kind of pretender. The traditional VQ/GK seems redundant. A rainbow seems obvious. Pity Ulm doesn't get any "good" ones. Naga?

Your traditional units pretty much rot... or am I missing something? Only the swordsmen and rangers/villain are worth using long term. The Ghoul Guardian MR is too low to be a midgame option...

(all new themes are good, I love new themes, thankyou, thankyou, thankyou thankyou!!!! ...this one just seems very constrained to me...)

Rabe

P.S. Maybe make wolves sacred for a munchkin bless effect option? (Kidding!!)
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Old January 13th, 2004, 03:24 PM

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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

Well, playing with Misfortune-1 I got a unique hero on turn 3 with Black Forest Ulm! Don't remember the name but his title was Blood Count or Blood Marshal (IIRC). Basically a hero with good combat stats, Blood 2, Immortal, wields a Great Sword, comes with heavy armor, and I believe he is undead as well, with the standard undead qualities. I don't think he was ethereal.

Overall, pretty nasty customer.

I have to agree with the early supercombatant stuff. I wanted to try things out real quick before work and started a game where I used a POD with blood and death. Took two provinces and then blood hunted with both a mage I recruited on the first turn and the POD, ignoring further expansion. Had a vampire by turn 6, which was more than enough to conquer most provinces with indep lvl 3. I had 3 provinces on turn 6, and then 7 on turn 8, 10 on turn 10 (vampire took one per turn, hero noted above took the other two with the starting pikeneers. All without any special equipment on the vampire. I imagine if I had set the indep higher that would have made a bit of difference, but still, it was a no stress situation since the vampire was immortal and my domain spread fast enough that he was never in danger of permanent death. I did have to sacrifice gold income to keep unrest down (0 taxes except at capital).

Scary stuff, especially to face in a MP game. I daresay it may end up as one of the best early land grab nations.

Is this unbalancing? Well, there is still the enemy priest problem, since the vampire is undead, and then the undead-specific attack spells, but the fact that the vamp is immortal makes it tough to permanently KO if the Ulm player takes a high domain strength (esp in the first 10-20 turns).

Food for thought....

(In case anyone was wondering, I was playing a POD, death-8, blood-6(IIRC), with Order-1, Death-1 (required), Misfortune-1 (required), and Magic-1 (also required, I think). Never even recruited a fortune teller (didn't recruit much period, I just wanted to see what the summoned vampire was like)
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Old January 13th, 2004, 03:30 PM
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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

The Vampire Queen seems like an obvious choice for this theme.

Fortune Tellers would be good with luck too I imagine, since you'd get lot's of good events and few, if any, bad ones.
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Old January 13th, 2004, 04:21 PM
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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

To me this theme seemed obvious as a sneak-army. Its one of the few nations where an entire army can be out into the field. Good leaders, infantry, archers, mages, Hmmm I dont remember about the priests. Fast wolves for flankers. Basically scouting with the ability to maybe even win if your caught.

The fact that fortune tellers can actually lessen the instance of bad luck might mean that you could push a bad-luck dominion onto another nation while lessening its affects at home?
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Old January 13th, 2004, 06:52 PM

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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

If anyone is interested, I can post the "Blood Count" hero's stats when I get home later. Still thinking of new things to do with Black Forest Ulm....

and I agree, Gandalf, that it is probably the most sneaky empire of all now, or at least the most sneaky "off the shelf". ALso, while not the most powerful flankers by any means, the wolves and the wolf-herders are just such a cool idea. Looks like it is going to be a long night...

Very cohesive theme. I started the game and immediately thought "Transylvania" when I saw the unit mix.

One thing, though: I think it would be nice to get themes for the races that only have the main theme as a choice (i.e. Mictlan, Atlantis, R'leth, Arco (any others?)). That way, in MP, no one could be sure about your capabilities until they interacted with your empire in a meaningful way. Suggestions:

Mictlan seems to be loosely Aztec-based. Maybe a theme that was Inca-based with more Astral (astronomy) and less fire.

Atlantis could have a theme that included an alliance with the tritons or maybe where the Initiates of the Deep and company staged a coup and now there are more surface dweller types living in domed cities or such.

R'leth could have a theme where the Void Gate let in a Super-Vastness that took over and now the illithids are a slave race as well, and the troops have been crossbred with various horrors.

Arco, well, I don't really have any bright ideas on that one yet. Maybe some great change comes about as a result of the astrologers seeing a great calamity and that empire changed in the resultant chaos.

Sorry to get so off topic, but I think the themes are what help the immense replayability of this game. On a side note, do the computer players ever use themes?

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  #10  
Old January 13th, 2004, 06:56 PM
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Default Re: Black Forest - Ulm

The AI uses themes, and quite often at that.

[ January 13, 2004, 18:37: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]
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