Black Forest - Ulm

[neurosis#5]

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)

[Teraswaerto]

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.

[Gandalf Parker]

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?

[neurosis#5]

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?

neurosis#5
(formerly DBL227)

[Teraswaerto]

The AI uses themes, and quite often at that.

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

[Gandalf Parker]

Great Ideas for more themes. I highly agree that all races should have SOME choices although we dont have to rush on that. It allows the game to grow staying ahead of player boredom. (boredom? Ive been playing Dom for 3 years. Oh well, you know what I mean)

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.

Arcos seems to be the nation of choice for researchers. And it has always struck me as being also very strong in units. Pulling back on magic would take it toward the other nations which probably isnt needed.

Maybe a theme where it goes even further into research. Lots of variety in mages and sages and alchemists. But then make it so weak in units that it is FORCED to use independents alot. That would make it useful for people who want to play with magic. And useful for large-map games but probably suicide on small fast ones. It would be a niche.

Of course, someone could also mod these.
I think some really good mods should end up being adopted as themes. That would be nice.

[Psitticine]

BF Ulm does have national heroes, including the one mentioned below: Burkhard Nachtzehrer, the Blood Marshal. He's ethereal, can fly, is immortal, regenerates, and is a beserker. He's also got Blood 2, making him a nasty customer.