"Got Blood?" -- BF Ulm AAR (Newbie)

[Tuna-Fish]

Skull staff can be made with 2 death, right? after that, you can make a skullface.

Yes, but you can't summon a VC until you have 3D. I usually tend to summon a VC before I hit Construction 4 (so that's my preference) I also never seem to have enough Death Gems initially playing with BF because of the use of searching spells (3 Death a pop).

But if you don't plan on using VC's you don't have to worry about 3D.

[Scott Hebert]

Having proposed a question, and hearing the arguments on both sides, I have done what any sane person would do in this case; I took both options.

And thus begins the saga of....

Irma, Queen that Hungers, Sovereign of Sin
Water 3, Earth 3, Death 3, Blood 4
Order 1, Death 1, Misfortune 1, Magic 3
Dominion 5
Castle: Fortress

14 players (all but Ermor/Atlantis/R'lyeh) on the Inland map.
Starting number of provinces: 1
Indep Strength: 5
Special Site Freq: 50
Richness: Normal
Random Event: Rare
Score Graph: Disabled

"And so it begins..."

The keep had fallen, as Irma knew it would. The hunger wrought by the Malediction filled her, as it did all the nobles left in the kingdom. Well, in her case, 'noble' would be overstepping matters a bit. Her darkest secret was that she was the heir to the legacy of the Master Smiths, who had been put to the sword (or the stake) by the Inquisitors of the Black Temple; heir to the knowledge of the Forge that the Inquisitors had stolen; heir to the true strength of Ulm.

For her part, her rise in power was based upon the blood of the Inquisitors. Not that it was pure enough for magical ends. Indeed not. No, she fed upon them, as they had fed upon the Smiths. And now, she was coming to bring the blessing of the Malediction upon the world.

Okay, so I start in Province 19. Doesn't mean a thing to me, but it might to those of you who have played the Inland map a lot. Looking around, I have the plains of Cun Aral, the plains of Fenatice, the mountainous Waywoods, the Cacevic Highlands, and the plains of Dotian surrounding me. Not bad as a beginning location. Hopefully I will be able to blood hunt in one of the plains adjacent to the capital while reaping the rewards of the mountains to the south.

On to the commanders. Karl, the Commander of Ulm, is going to become Irma's prophet, spreading the Malediction to all. Nan Bagor, our humble Wolfherd, is going to check more closely on the inhabitants of the Cun Aral plains. Finally, Irma is going to research Alteration magic.

As for initial expenditures, Rexor's Barbarians are up for hire, so I bid 155 gold for their services. As for more... reliable minions, I pay for a Fortuneteller (90), and 12 Rangers of Ulm (144).

Status Report:

Treasury: 11
Income: 182
Upkeep: 16
Gems: 1S3D1N (+1S+3D+1N)

Bayushi Tasogare

[SelfishGene]

I will be following this thread with interest as i find Black Forest Ulm to be a painfully weak and insipid theme.

From what ive gathered from other threads, most like Black Forest because of Vampire Counts and their ability to rout independents. Well, that must be all that Ulm has.

Having only the generic priest available for duty means you cannot cast any morale support without your prophet. Having no sacred units means you can't ever build for bless effects. Virtually every unit has a mere 10 morale, which is downright terrible and makes Ulm the equal in morale weakness with the worst civs. Having only 1 Blood, 160 gold, non-sacred mages means you HAVE to use scouts, meaning you have to blood hunt the whole country and spend dozens of turns building scouts.

Personally, imo, i don't see the point. Its a theme built around a specific Pretender.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:
Having only the generic priest available for duty means you cannot cast any morale support without your prophet.

Fortune tellers can forge horns of valor which will solve all of your morale problems.

Having only 1 Blood, 160 gold, non-sacred mages means you HAVE to use scouts, meaning you have to blood hunt the whole country and spend dozens of turns building scouts.

Scouts are more efficient for blood hunting than almost any other blood hunters, so this isn't a real weakness.

[Daynarr]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:
I will be following this thread with interest as i find Black Forest Ulm to be a painfully weak and insipid theme.

From what ive gathered from other threads, most like Black Forest because of Vampire Counts and their ability to rout independents. Well, that must be all that Ulm has.

You could not be more wrong here. BF is possibly one of the most powerfull themes there if you know how to use their strengths. And it's actually even easier to use it for beginners then default Ulm. One of their best strengths are rangers. You can build masses of them just like man can build longbows, but rangers use armor piercing crossbows which are better at taking HI and HC which helps incredibly at early expansion. Heck, in MP you have a chance to take out 2 players out before real magic starts to kick in. You don't know how powerfull they are until you play against it in MP and you suddenly face large masses of rangers (who have high accuracy by the way) that start to effectively erase you troops backed up by a hard to penetrate wall of Ulm HI.
The really scary part is that BF can recruit those rangers really, really fast so you will probably face them much sooner then you can build effective defense.

BF also allows you to take Misfortune 3 and get away with it. Just build dozens of Fortunetellers and keep them in capitol. Chances for bad events are capitol based IIRC, and it will suppress most of bad events. Of course, that will mean that you don't get national heroes either, but you do get lots of nice design points.

You don't need to rush VC to play this theme effectively. And it DOES allow you to get Ice Devils later on, which normal Ulm wouldn't be able to, at least not easily.

Having only the generic priest available for duty means you cannot cast any morale support without your prophet. Having no sacred units means you can't ever build for bless effects. Virtually every unit has a mere 10 morale, which is downright terrible and makes Ulm the equal in morale weakness with the worst civs.

All this is true for normal Ulm as well, so this is not really weakness of BF but Ulm in general. As Graeme Dice said, there are workarounds to tackle these problems, but in the beginning your prophet is going to have to carry the burden of sustaining morale of your troops.

Having only 1 Blood, 160 gold, non-sacred mages means you HAVE to use scouts, meaning you have to blood hunt the whole country and spend dozens of turns building scouts.

That is why it's important to have a pretender with Blood magic to speed up the things (like VQ).

[Scott Hebert]

Personally, SelfishGene, I have to go with Daynarr here. BF Ulm, while not having a very good magical base (it IS Ulm, after all), or a very diverse troop base, has most everything you need to play.

First, the Rangers are quite powerful. As others have said, the ability to mass-produce them works very well. Second, you get excellent heavy infantry in the Morningstar Infantry of Ulm. Third, you get free, speedy, expendable flankers with the Wolfherd's wolves. They are excellent to shut down enemy archers and mages, crossbowmen especially.

Finally, you get access to slightly more diverse paths than base Ulm, and Communion. Something I've contemplated is this. Sabbath and Communion work with each other, right? So, if I enter my Vampire Queen or Blood Counts into a Sabbath while my other Mages go into Communion, and one of my Astral mages cast Astral Shield, my VQ/BCs will get the Shield without needing Astral Magic, correct? I might need this later, and thought to check now.

Also, I'm on turn 7 'in game', and I've gotten a Hero that I don't think anyone has commented on. Has anyone else seen Ulrich, the Ghoul Baron? If you want, I can post his stats when I write up his turn.

Anyway, on to the writing! Oh, and if you want to refer to me, it's "Tasogare" or "Taso" or "That incompetent supercilious idiot." My handle is written in Japanese style.

Bayushi Tasogare