Ulm, the enigma of Steel
Pretender(CBM):
Dom 10 Blue Dragon
Magic: Water 9
Scales:
Turmoil 3 & Luck 3
(Point cost=0, and sinergy both between them and with your dom 10 awake expander. Quick expansion and dominion spread means you actually have enough provinces eligible to have a positive event)
Cold 3 & Death 1
(I dislike death but actually you have no old mages so its not a big deal. Cold 3 is bad for economy but you will be rich even then and your units are immune to the extreme cold wich otherwise fatigue units and mages)
Sloth 2
(you could actually take 3 with the regular units but im also recruiting capitol only steel warriors and aim to recruit 10 of them each turn. To be absolutely sure you can you can take Sloth 1 instead)
Magic 0
(I would like to afford magic 1 but I cant. Still its better than drain researchwise)
snowball
This setup is single minded. An awake monster or a blessing setup will buy you fast expansion.
But what if you take both of them?
Very fast expansion.
Expansion
Leave the normal indies to your steel warriors and the tough ones to the dragon. You can actually tell wich province wields the best gold income since your dominion spreads fast, those will be targets.
Early Magic
You need to site search fast specially for water sites. Next death sites. Once youre at that recruit shamen. They have a chance of death 2 and since youre researching construction you can actually forge skull mentors. Theres a death 3 hero that you can get thanks to luck but you cant rely on that one. Eventually you want to site search for everything. You hardly have to use magic in you first wars since you are suposed to have the upper hand early on.
Dealing with human opponents
Early expansion. Early forts like mushrooms. Core army of tough steel warriors.
This early force means no one would like to invade you.
It also means you can pick your friends as most would like your help to defeat their opponents.
Think carefully who you choose to ally with, youre not pressed and this is the main choice in middle game.
Regarding fort sites. Probably you can start with the temple. While you are waiting for the fort to complete hire as many regular priests, these are far better than your mage priests or lvl 2 priests to steel warriors as they can only bless and thats what you want.
In the next one you can first build the fort and delay the rest using that time to recruit warrior chiefs (leadership 80 and stealthy), these are supposed to lead any ulmish troops (recruit only stealthy ones) but steel warriors. Sneaking inside your provinces make them effectively invisible to other players, even a force of 400 units.
Magic
Construction is a good thing because you have forge bonus. But it also gives you legions of steel.
Enchantment gives you stenght of the giants.
Conjuration gives you summon earthpower and if you got a nice death mage bane lords cheapely kitable.
But the main event is evocation, you want to go for it as soon as posible (maybe is critical to get const 6 for the lamps).
Evoc 8 gives you maelstrom wich your pretender can cast and thats why you need water sites.
If you pull it up quickly enough you will be actually storing a good amount of water gems. Those gems are best spent in conj 6 Sea kings court. Each casting is 55 gems but gives you a bunch of tough amphibian soldiers you may give a use like invade water provinces. But the best part is the troll mage that gives you a water gem each turn. Theres also a snow ball effect here as you get to the point that you have enough troll mages is like having a second maelstrom cast and 55 gems will be like paying less gems, to the poing they will be practically free. Maybe feels abusive but the endgame need a constant fuel of gems.