Ulm vs New Era
 

From the first looks, NE is quite superior to Ulm.

Lets do a quick comparison:
Battle:
Grove Guards are very strong against Ulm. Trampling makes ulmish steel worthless and allows the Grove Guard to kill multiple enemies in one battle turn, while Ulm's HI will have a hard time wounding a grove guard. Arbalestes do damage, but trampling often brings the grove guards in the middle of the enemy, so the arbalestes will hit friend and foe alike. Grove Guards are strong enough (str 17, damage 9 axe) to hurt the ulmish knights.

Magic:
Ulm is better in research due to their smiths immunity against drain scale. You can build 2 smiths for one pan. However, NE has higher paths available, and the pans are capable of producing the items needed to boost those (earth boots, thistle mace). Ulm has no means to boost its fire magic. In addition, nature magic seems to be more helpfull for a nation that uses huge amounts of troops than fire.

Forging:
While Smiths have a forge bonus, the range of things they can actually forge is quite small. In addition, Ulm lacks commanders worth equipping. On the other hand, NE has everything to make their Grove Guards excellent fighters: Ring of regeneration, Black Steel Armor, Midget Smasher, Boots of the messenger and the cauldron. Especially regeneration is usefull for those high hp grove guards.

Stealth:
NE has some stealthy troops, although they are inferior tho those of other stealth nations.

Holy:
Both nations suck.

Scales:
Order 3 Productivity 3 is recommendet for both nations. Ulm has some more points to spend because of the drain 3.

What did I miss? Maybe the more experienced players could point out a few things in Ulm's favour.

[ August 05, 2004, 23:16: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I thought armor still protected against trampling? If so, tramplers would be particularly effective against high defense units, but not low defense, high protection Ulmish infantry.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Not THAT hard, with damage 9 mauls and battleaxes. Not to mention STR 12 elites with damage 10 halberds. Keep in mind that a group of tramplers that doesn't rout a trampled enemy regiment will almost invariably end up surrounded and ready for a humbling countersmackdown.
Beyond that, not even a grove guard can withstand an Ulmish cavalry charge, and cavalry usually end up striking first.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

And how!

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Well, yeah, but the grove guards are bigger and less expendable.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

At full cost.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Point taken. I imagine the easiest way is to have your pretender forge both a Fire Helmet and a Skull of Fire, outfit a smith with both, and have him forge more Fire Helmets. Or you could always skip the skulls and get Forge of the Ancients Online.
Neither option is all that efficient.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Um. Knights? I mean, c'mon, knights. No shoes, or anything, but footwear nonwithstanding, knights!
I agree that Ulmish smiths can forge precious few items(And many aren't all that useful to Ulm), unless you actually bother to empower one in a new path. Then again, Ulm's innate forge bonus and easy access to Dwarven Hammers, the Forge of the Ancients, and the Hammer of the Forge Lord all ensure that empowerment eventually pays for itself.

Most of your points are definitely valid and, having played neither nation in multiplayer, I honestly can't say whether one is more powerful than the other, either in general or against each other.
Still, I do suspect you've sold Ulm short.

Update: Speaking of which, you've disregarded Ulm's sappers, their guardians' castle defense bonus, and their production bonus. Not a bad set set of perks.

[ August 05, 2004, 23:46: Message edited by: Vicious Love ]

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

well pan NE has starting income of 5N no earth .

against ulm pan NE might probably win but a problem with a grove guard :
7 encumberance so it fatigues out quick .

1 strat movement sucks too .

ulm will research faster than you . you are almost forced growth 3 prod 3 order 3 with pan NE .

ulm can still afford a nasty cyclops e.g. or something else while you have less points for your pretender .

a grove guard is size 3 .
a ulm knight too . so it can't trample .

your grove guard : att 10 def 8 , 17 str + 9 battle axe damage , 18 prot

ulm knight : 24 prot , att 12 def 9 strength 13 , 6 damage morning star +1 initial lance attack .

gold + resource costs are about equal .

normally you should beat an ulm knight but only short . if you want to besiege him though you have to take lots of fodder with you while he can just take some sappers . you may have a slight advantage over ulm but nothing big .

if you have to fight any races with blood :
devils and the like are size 3 so no trample and e.g. an arch devil with att 18 def 16 will win most likely even a one vs 2 grove guards .

i think pan NE is just not worth it you have only your grove guards but nothing else for a long time . if you make a strong sc pretender you sacrifice your other abilities .

research will be a pain . if you had still maenads as fodder it may perhaps be nice but as it is it is not good .
i would only try them at urgaia and the like .

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

PrinzMegaherz did you already think out a basic strat for pan NE ?
i would be interested in a complete pretender design with scales + magic paths etc.

i think Vicious Love has some good points too . the 18 protection protect him quite a bit but he has so low defense that most ulm infantries will hit him too . they have high strength + wpn damage too so they will quite damage him .

finally with E2F1 the ulm smiths have some good battle spells especially midgame magma eruption may be quite devastating .

finally you have no missile weapons so while you advance x-bows ( sappers ) , arlabests and some smiths doing battle magic may already cost you a heavy bloodtoll .


i think it is even with ulm a hard war and againt any other nations impossible .
i haven't tried them yet though so if you have a nice plan please share and i try to find weaknesses or say i am impressed and didn't think on that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sappers are good if your enemy is castleling. In my comparison both nations use rather expensiv fortifications, so castleling is not an option. Same goes for castle defense bonus. If your expensiv castles are under siege, something is wrong.
But against other nations those points count of course.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not sure. I thought I read here in the forum that trampling does special damage, propably armor piercing

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Satyrs are cheap and make good chaff. Put one Size 3 thing in their group so the arbalestes which have the "fire large creature" command will attack them too. Place your other tramplers a little bit behind and you should survive the first volley with no losses to the main group. Maybe there are enough satyrs left to take the cavalery charge.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hm, I use the earth mother with fortified city, dominion 6, Earth and Nature 4, Order 3 Productivity 3, Drain 1.
You don't need a blessing, and you can upgrade her with earth boots and treelord's staff to earth 5 nature 6 if you want her to do the magics, or give her amulet of reinvigoration + boots of the messenger and some decent armor and let her go.

Alternativly, you could keep neutral magic and have a dominion of 4. Pan has cheap temple so this might balance the weak dominion.

[ August 06, 2004, 01:52: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why do you think NE Pan has to take growth? I've won a mutant game with NE; I have another NE game going now. In neither case did I see a need to take growth.

For supplies? You're _Pangaea_! You don't need growth for that! You have supply generating dryads and Pans, and easy ability to forge wineskins and such.

If you think you need O/P/G all at 3, no wonder you think you can't afford a good pretender. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You mean *MAGIC* 3, right? Growth 3 don't do jack towards helping you research faster.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

You forgot SPIES. Any good Ulm player will have 30 or so of these running around by mid game. You can cripple an opponent with a spy or two in every province.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why do you think NE Pan has to take growth? I've won a mutant game with NE; I have another NE game going now. In neither case did I see a need to take growth.

For supplies? You're _Pangaea_! You don't need growth for that! You have supply generating dryads and Pans, and easy ability to forge wineskins and such.

If you think you need O/P/G all at 3, no wonder you think you can't afford a good pretender. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i basically meant growth 3 because you already have prod 3 + order 3 . so there growth 3 would really shine and bring a 35% population growth until turn 50 , with order 3 + prod 3 this would make you awesome rich .
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You mean *MAGIC* 3, right? Growth 3 don't do jack towards helping you research faster.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">lol i really meant growth 3 in this special case but magic 3 is another almost need .

maybe i am a bit faithless here but i think magic 3 is a must have with pan NE if you want any research so even without growth you have almost sure 360 points . only thing to dump them a bit is misfortune because or death 1 perhaps .
caine which magic setting did you take ? magic 3 or something else ?

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You will stumble over one of those libraries sooner or later. Ulm's drain scales makes sages useless, but NE has no problem with them, so neutral magic is okay

[ August 06, 2004, 18:57: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

Ulmish infantry is good. They've got extra hitpoints (which NE has as well), amongst the best equipment of any standard infantry, and still only cost 10 gold. Their magic resistance is a nasty problem though.

Sages are a good buy for Ulm. Even at full drain, they're much better than smiths at researching. And Ulm is probably the best nation for lightless latern forging, assuming they can rustle up some fire gems.

Drain immunity gives a whopping 120-point bonus; as well as the extra magic resistance and spell fatigue on non-smiths.

As already mentioned, Ulm gets a hefty resource bonus in its castles.

Ulmish smiths are solid, dependable mages that don't leave a hole in your budget, and they can cheaply forge their own equipment - earth boots and girdles of strength, mostly. Combined with earth power, and they're pretty formidable. Earth magic by itself is versatile enough to keep you going, anyway.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sages with drain 3 are actually still more cost effective than Master Smith's.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Smiths still suffer from extra fatigue from the drain scale.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

"Smiths still suffer from extra fatigue from the drain scalle"

Aha that probably explains why summon earth power - blade wind - blade wind flee got me killed not running with 99 fatigue

I am playing Ulm in a MP game ATM & rushing to construction 7, casting the forge of the ancients, and spamming "stuff" seems the main strength

Lightless lanterns are great too 2 gems with a hammer

Pickles

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

Seems a little unfair; drain-immune should mean drain-immune!

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

Heh, without the ability to build any research enhancing tools. NE *needs* Magic of some level or another in order to make it's Dryad's cost/research bearable. While saying, "I can always get sages" this doesn't change that everyone else can get sages and you are in no better a position than you were before.

Cataphracts are vastly superior to Black Knights and thus NE has a distinct advantage over Ulm. Also another consideration is that Minotaurs and a goodly portion of the Satyrs (except for the Hoplite) are strat move 2. Both suffer from the same condition of non-random mages, but Pans have N3E2 and a significant Nature Income (which allows early or high powered Mother Oak/Gift of Health enchantments) and use of Horn of Valor/Supply items.

The comparison of Missile Troops is pretty moot, since NE doesn't have any missile troops and Ulm has high resource Missile Troops (the draw to missile troops is masses not really quality) and Missile weapons are nulled very early in the game with spells and magic items.

The Grove Guard is not really pro/con in the NEvUlm debate, mostly because the Grove Guard is in and of itself, not worth building with the Mino Soldiers right next to them.

The ability to stealth preach is also a big factor between the two.

I prefer NE.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

They're smiths, not battle mages. They have no business leaving the kitchen, except to cast Legions of Steel and get back to the forge.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What are the advantages of the normal Minotaures except the strategic move of 2?

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

hm i think ulm is still better . and with spies you can give pan ne who needs national troops nice trouble http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

ulm really shines in forging . when you chose a wise magic path on your pretender he can summon good scs and your smith forge all the toys for them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is that so? Do you empower your smiths to do the forging? Or do you only use Fire Earth items? Imho you can't have a midgame SC without Death and Astral (Wraith Sword and Amulett of Luck)

Nature magic allows you to get most other paths trough the lamia queen, and the harpy queen gives you air magic. I think thats pretty versatile for a nation that is supposed to have bad magic.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Early on, a couple of artillery Smiths casting Magma Bolts from the rear can really make a difference for Ulm.

Re: Ulm vs New Era
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is that so? Do you empower your smiths to do the forging? Or do you only use Fire Earth items? Imho you can't have a midgame SC without Death and Astral (Wraith Sword and Amulett of Luck)

Nature magic allows you to get most other paths trough the lamia queen, and the harpy queen gives you air magic. I think thats pretty versatile for a nation that is supposed to have bad magic. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">as i wrote for that i give my pretender death or blood skill . so he can summon death scs , forge and summon death mages .
or he starts blood hunting .
and the smithes forge the earth toys for the scs . you can trade a lot with ulm because you can everybody forge dwarfen hammers for the items you want .

i myself love ulm as trading partner so far in mp http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif