Iron Faith Ulm

Golem Cult is IMO a waste of points. Without instant access to any type of golem or golemlike effect it has no thematic feel. In addition the bonus is only within your dominion. It doesn't even make Golem's sacred.

I'm sure that when the Mod tools come a worthwhile Golem Cult can be created and balanced.

[Keir Maxwell]

Musings on Rainbow Mages.

I found the choice of a Rainbow mage unappealling in Dom1 but haven't gone far enough with Dom2 to be sure. One of the big factors in site %. If this is set high a rainbow mage can have explosive impact.

I fought an Ulm race in Dom1, 60% sites, which would have eclipsed my magical power (I was Vanheim) by about t.22. Fortunately, for me, I attacked ~t.17 and captured key mages producing sites just in time - the battles were very close and Ulms Air mages were better than mine. If the Ulm player had found an extra Firbolg fortress early that might have been enough to have defeated my attack - which was an all in effort with mutltiple stages included regrouping, fighting off counter attacks and then goīng forward again. One of the key questions was for Ulm to get enough HI out as my Blade Winds devestated his Fall Bears and lesser troops. Orb Lighting (Titan with high Air, boots of quickness) was my other trump card but I didn't start the assault with the Titan fully operational and his air mages could counter the Titan and Van's air magic when it got going fully. I had Caelum to the north so I pulled most of my Van air mages out of the conflict after the first stage. My amazon 2 astral mages did sterling work at times but it really hurts when they hit a Van.

Looking back on that game it seems to me that when you consider the decline in cost of the Rainbow Mages things may have gone differently if fought under Dom2. As I was doing very well with the Van that makes me think that Ulm with a Rainbow mage can realistically hope to staunch it out early and then match or exceed other races in magic later due to high gem income and all the mages you find. How competitive this is depends alot on the % of magic sites and I'm looking at 60% as the standard now days - searching is more fun. If this makes Rainbow pretenders more viable then thats an cool.

One issue is that Rainbow pretenders arn't easy to use. This doesn't mean a new player keen on them shouldn't use one but that they should be aware of what they are getting themselves in for. If they are keen enough they will prosper but they will certainly learn some harsh lessons along the way. I was advised not to use blood magic in my first Dom1 demo game but alternative advice to give Ice Devils a try proved well worth following and very enjoyable - for me at least. However it was alot of work what with having to learn to blood hunt, and equip mutliple super combatents - one a turn once summoning started. Equiping is a huge issue when you are doing it for the first time in a MP game and I lost my first few Ice Devils to fishies in the hot oceans. After that they operated by air and inside Jotuns dominion were possible - and they fought in packs not ones. So I had setbacks but I learnt a huge amount.

When I have put together Rainbow mages I have not been impressed with the value of taking picks to 4 without a very clear reason. Justifications might be earth 4 for a nation with alot of sacred mages or nature 4 for a nation with few sacred mages and some troops that could really benifit from the morale boost of going berserk - Templers perhaps. However Rainbow mages are expensive and that makes going to 4 a big issue. I certainly wouldn't want to leave any of the paths empty as its the cheap early picks that get you maximum return in terms of site searching and research. Even blood should not be ignored for both crafting (more magical paths combo'ing the better) and sites. While useful blood sites are rare they are also game breakers and to not have any chance of getting them when using a rainbow mages seems unwise to me.

For me the basis of a Rainbow mage is 2 in everything you don't need three in. The things you need three in are those that require 3 for getting items to boost magic levels - air, fire . . . can't remember the rest off the top of my head but I think Astral is pretty crucial. Its this core of abilities that makes a Rainbow mage because they combo together. Going to 4 for bless effects is another thing which I think should be considered after you have got your basic template done. Missing out any of the elements of the basic template can have serious negative impact. You need to master all magic with a Rainbow mage to make it truly worth the investment and you can by building all the super duper items you get at con6. Combine that with the ability to find sites producing all the different magic gems and many indie mages and you have something to get your teeth into.

cheers

Keir

[ December 21, 2003, 23:16: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[PvK]

Sounds like I'm an order of skill magnitude below you, Keir. My (newb-ish) reasons for choosing level 4 have been:

1) Because I heard that site searching required up to 4. I haven't seen the master list of sites, but it sounds like you're saying the level-4 ones are less worthwhile than the ones that are combos of levels 1-3.

2) To get level-4 bless effects. I actually think 2 or 3 level-4 bless effects look better than many of the level-9 bless effects. (e.g., I'd rather have templars blessed by Attack +2 and Defense +2, than have one of 75% Shock Resist, Twist Fate, 50% anti-poison, or Death Curse). Of course, with a level-9, you also get an improved level-4, but you can get a few level-4's for the cost of a level-9, and having several level-4's gives better site searching and spell variety, too.

3) So the pretender will be a fairly good mage in these areas, rather than something I could get pretty easily with a mortal mage plus an item or empowerment. Again with IF Ulm, the pretender with level-4's can (I thought - may be wrong) better help the Black Priests out with items to get them boosted with items matching their random picks.

PvK

[aldin]

Originally posted by SurvivalistMerc:
I've experimented a bit more with this and concluded that the templars are just distraction. It's the change to your mages that is important. And I think the same kind of rainbow sage that works with vanilla ulm works with IF. Sure...you may only have a reinvig bonus for your magi if you took earth 4 and the rest a rainbow...but you need a variety of gems to make your research work. Especially if you take drain 3 which I still find wise.

My thinking is that if you take a decent bless effect, you are in effect ignoring your nation's research or other needs. (Such as productivity/order).

Thoughts?

I've just finished a couple of plays with IF and I'd come to more or less the same conclusions. Standard Ulm has three glaring problems, devestating production costs, little magic flexibility and morale issues. IF provides solutions for the Last two. With the right items, Black priests can easily be 2E2?. That's plenty powerful. And sermon of courage cannot be overemphasized in it's ability to keep those heavily armored troops on the battlefield where they do some good. I'd want to toy with it a lot more, but I think Templars are just one component to IF Ulmish Mage/Priest led armies.

By the way, I think the most important unit with regard to Bless is the Black Priests themselves. Air Shield and Reinvigoration both look pretty good on a magic user...

Originally posted by PvK:
1) Because I heard that site searching required up to 4.

3) Again with IF Ulm, the pretender with level-4's can (I thought - may be wrong) better help the Black Priests out with items to get them boosted with items matching their random picks.

PvK

1) It does, but there is only ~1 lvl 4 site for each sphere.

3) Usually level 3 is good enough.

~Aldin (who also bumps his pretender to 4s and is certainly more of a n00b than PvK)

Black priests can easily be 2E2?

I can't stress this enough! Don't spend too much on paper mages. Don't do it! Don't get in the habit. Otherwise you will be like a Toys 'R' Us and everyone else is coming to you for christmas and artillery spells and assy squads will make you cry. This is only applicable to MP but ... don't do it!

I reiterate! Don't do it!

On average you only need 2 in any path to be a decent searcher. Low level sites are much more frequent than high level sites. I know the feeling of wanting to maximize your searching for all those delicious gems; but sometimes it's okay not to have every site in every province you own found. Especially if anyone has spies.

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:

I'm looking at 60% as the standard now days -

From what I've seen in most of my games; with very few exceptions is that 50% is the standard (which I'm fine with), Independants 6, Random Events Common.

Barring personal preference and people wanting to play different sorts of games. What do people usually play?

[SurvivalistMerc]

I find that with earth boots and summon earthpower I can still get blade wind out of the IF black priests.

I don't usually make my black priests 2 E, 2 of their random pick. I usually only give additional earth power to the priests I'm using for blade wind. Now, I do take really good care of my priests that end up with earth as a random pick. Because they are really, really good at blade wind...just like your traditional smiths. And they don't ever cast those annoying magma bolts when you end up massing HI against supercombatants.

A lot of folks don't like to use eyes of aiming on their good commanders. I sprinkle them liberally on my blade winders. (But not everyone casts blade wind. About half the priests get scripted with Sermon of Courage.) The ones with blade wind get earth boots and eyes of aiming. I don't think that really makes them look like Toys R Us. Because you have to have earth magic to use the boots...and that isn't all that common among the other races' magi. Sure...Pangea and Vanheim will like earth boots, but they don't really need them.

And I would love to watch a powerful assassin get two eyes of aiming. Of course, the owner of the assassin could prevent that by just having two misc items on the assassin already...but if the assassin dies I will get those.

The variety of items your IF priests can craft, especially with items that increase their random, is astounding.

You can get into blood magic with random blood magi. It's really cool to play IF once you get your research up a bit. And independent magi are still as good as they always were.

The only picks I would go up to 4 in with IF are earth (2 benefits: reinvig for your magi and makes your pretender immune to the air spell that takes commanders to the caster) and death (lesser fear on the black templars is nice and I think you will pick death 3 anyway to make sure you find the death sites because you really need death gems for research).

IF may not work that well in MP, but it's really enjoyable in SP. A lot of the nicer spells in certain spheres, such as air, do not require more than 1 level of skill. Orb lightning. That false horror spell.

One question: can rocks attack? Or just defend? Because the preaching of IF is so good against hostile dominion that you can easily put a rock in +3 (for you) dominion to reduce his hps and kill it.