Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

[Endoperez]

Dominions is important, but dominion 10 is probably a bit over the top. With an Oracle, you can afford it, though. If you choose to go with good dominion, you'd better invest on good scales as well. Ulm doesn't need as much money as the other nations, so I take Luck with them. The math-guys (and gal) will tell you it isn't feasible, but I like the random element. You should also max Production. Remember to take Drain 3 - your pretender is affected, but your Master Smiths can research just as well even with the drain.

Your armies sounded fairly good. However, I wouldn't use Sappers that much - they cost twice the amount of normal archers. They do have mapmove 2, which allows you to use them with your Black Knights, but I don't use them in my normal armies. I recruit indep shortbowmen for that. They can't harm your own units at all, so friendly fire is much less of an issue as long as any crossbowmen you might have aren't ordered to Fire Closest.

Breaking sieges can be hard. Did you send lone commanders in first, to see the defending force? Knowledge is power.
Why did you lose? Powerful magics? Ulm does have access to some quite powerful spells, use them. Conjuration 3 for Earth Power, and your Smiths are Earth 3. Constr 4 and Earth Boots, and they all are Earth 4. Blade Wind and Magma Eruption are the two that have the most delightfully devastating effects.

As for forts - choose something with high Admin value. That gives you more resources. The one named 'Castle' is pretty good, but 'Fortress' also works if you're short on points.

If you go with Sandman's suggestion of a rainbow pretender (which can also be a good choice, especially with Ulm), you won't get that high paths. Acashic Record takes Astral 3, Gift of Health Nature 5 IIRC.
If you research Evocation 3 (Magma Bolts), then Conjuration 3 (Earth Power), then Evocation 4 (Blade Wind), then Construction 4 (Earth Boots, Thistle Mace) and then either Constr. 6 (Moonvine Bracelet, Ring of Sorcery, Starshine Skullcap, Staves of Elemental Mastery, Treelord's Staff) or Enchantment up to Gift of Health - you will get Gift of Health much later, but magical support much earlier. Also, initial Nature of 3 will be enough to cast the Gift of Health - Thistle Mace boosts N3 -> N4, Moonvine Bracelet N4->N5, and if needed, Treelord's Staff N5 -> N6 (as it replaces Thistle Mace, but gives +2 N).
Nature 3, Astral 3 is good for the general boosters. You want access to at least one of the Staves of Elemental Mastery - Earth/Air will take E2A3, Fire/Water F2W2. And of course, you want to be able to cast Forge of the Ancients. It will allow your mages to craft many more items. E5 is not too tough a requirement. Earth Boots and one of the Staves of the Elemental Masteries should be enough, so initial Earth 3 is enough.
Air/Earth has pretty nice items, and Earth/Astral as well, but the first Air booster is at level 3. Fire 1/Death 1 will allow for Flaming Skulls and +1 Fire, but Forge of the Ancients will let all of your Smiths to make those.

So, S3N3E3A3, D2 and/or W2 if you can afford it.
Monolith starts with S and N, and Dominion 4, but it doesn't have the slots to use the booster items, so we can't use that. And the human pretenders all have too low starting dominion values to boost it up to 10, or 9 or 8. With Great Sage, dominion of 6 allows for good scales, or for boosting one path to four, or for getting two new paths at levels 2 and 1. If you go just for scales, Production 3 and Drain 3 leave you enough points to get two other positive scales. You could go Order 3/Misfortune 1 for lots and lots of money and very few events, which will be bad more often than not but too rare to really harm you. You could go for Fortune 3/Turmoil 1 if you like to gamble, and receiving lots of good events. If you have supply problems (probably not, as Ulm builds its armies slowly, and you will get Enormous Cauldrons of Broth at Constr. 2 and Endless Vineskins at Constr. 4).

[shovah]

with ulm ive had success with a full rainbow pretender: f3a3w3d3s3n3e5(forge of the ancients ect) and possibly but usually not b3. This beast searching your provinces is almost as good as a spell costing 25 astral, he can also forge practically every avaliable item and can cast a huge number of spells (and with boosters...). If you can afford it try it on a freak lord, load him with defence and reinvig items and send him into battle casting alot of defensive buffs(and breath of winter). You can even make black lords into uber thugs like this, if its un-modde give them wraith sword, jade armour, horror helm, amulet of resilence and luck (not all of those are needed but they help) and he will carve up armies like you wouldnt believe. Since his strength isnt that high it should also be ok using CB.

[Sandman]

Personally, I'd rather get better scales than have a rainbow mage with 3 in several fields. The search advantage is minimal, and it'll be quite a while before you see any benefit.

[Endoperez]

Sandman said:
Personally, I'd rather get better scales than have a rainbow mage with 3 in several fields. The search advantage is minimal, and it'll be quite a while before you see any benefit.

I'd agree if I hadn't just posted a 4-times-3 rainbow pretender.

2 is enough for most sites, but for the items, and the initial levels and equipment slots needed to get access to both Forge of the Ancients and Gift of Health, that's the best I can come up with. If you just want to find lots of sites and play with the gems, possibly with empowering as well, then 2 is enough in most paths, and 3 should only be taken for those you'd most want to have. Fire might be a good choice for Ulm, because their Master Smiths already get a pick and it will also let you forge a booster. Flaming Helmet is a poor battle booster, but better than F2 allows for Phoenix Power, and Fire 3 is already quite powerful.

[shovah]

I just lik the fact that 1 turn from my pretender basically saves 25 astral gems. Also my rainbow with only a few boosters can summon all elemental royalty and plenty of other nastys. I also like (in sp only) to kit out various black lords as thugs (rocks vrs ermor, give charcoal shield, amulet of reinvig, ring of regen, main gauche and if playing modded dragon scale armour)+ i like having all items avaliable (also i dont empower unless i really need to)

[Agrajag]

shovah said:
I just like the fact that 1 turn from my pretender basically saves 25 astral gems.

2 turns. One turn to move him to the desired province, and another for the search command.

[Arker]

On the castle storming, there are some good tips here. More archers, mages if I have the big spells ready to go (I usually don't get many of the spells mentioned before I get killed, but I'll try to prioritise them now) and put my cavalry up front.

So far I've basically had two ways to lose it, I'd put my SC prophet in front, he'd get whacked, everyone would run. Or I'd put a couple good squads of heavy infantry up front, they'd get bottled up at the gate, fight for many rounds, with everyone behind them getting cut apart by archery and spells, then finally everyone would run.

The only way I've managed to take a castle that had any serious defenses (i.e. a pretender) was just to keep it bottled up, covered with preachers, and build temples in the surrounding provinces. But I'll give this a try.

Thanks for the tips on Ulm. So far I haven't used the scales much, not totally understanding them I've pretty much just left them alone.

As to beating a big army full of crappy troops with a small hardcore one, yes, I've done that, but there's just a point where it no longer works it seems. I mean, with Ulm, I'm fielding maybe 60 men, top quality, maybe another 30 cannon fodder javelinists... and suddenly here's 700 Mictlan slaves, or Emor's undead hordes... and my troops hit 100 fatigue LONG before they can hack all the enemies apart, and then they die. If they aren't properly backed up I can route them I've found, and run off a huge army like that without losing a man, but when they've a bunch of priests behind them buffing their morale, I'm just toast.

I got the snot kicked out of me on my Ulm game last night, while trying to finish off the Mannish pretender I had bottled up in his castle, suddenly on the other side of my domain this enormous army out of Emor appears, I mean just unbelievably huge. Sieged my pretender before I could get any significant army near, my high defense fortress with +fortress defense troops garrisoning it still crumbled in one turn. I think there were about 800 undead... I tried to distract them with an attack by my prophet and a dozen knights in another province, and even there I lost... there was only ONE enemy, but he was a badass necromancer, and he kept raising dead faster than my guys could kill them until they finally all turned tail and ran... anyway I gave up at that point.

Trying again, this time as R'lyeh. So far so good. Think it's the longest game I've played so far at the moment. 52 Turns in. I have all but one underwater province (Ermor has the one I don't have, and I've avoided attacking them so far as I want to be completely built up and ready, I know they're by far the meanest under AI, especially against R'lyeh since the illithid mind blasts don't affect their troops.) Atlantis was destroyed by Emor before I ever got to them, not sure how, as their capital was not occupied, Emor only took one underwater province, and an Island bordering Atlantis. So I cleaned up the independents, got three free fortresses.

One AI declared war on me, not Mictlan, the other 'm' with the spiders. They only attacked once, though, and have left me alone since. I've focused on taking all the underwater provinces from the independents and building up a good base. Also expanded my terrestrial holdings a little, like 7 provinces with two fortified I think, but only at the expense of independents. Grabbed a couple shoreside provinces in random places that fell to independents too. So right now I have a HUGE army in the fortress next to Emor's capital. Forging stuff as fast as I can. Huge problem keeping these buggers fed, for some reason. I have gift of health up, and acashic record on every province I hold, so pretty good gem income. Really really hoping I can take out Emor with a surprise attack, if that works I reckon I might have a chance.

BTW, advice on Equipment? At the moment I've got two traitor princes with the endless buckets of slop and moon blades. The endless buckets are a pain, only my pretender can make them, but the wine just wasn't doing enough. In fact even with the buckets I still keep getting starvation warnings. I only have *maybe* 300 troops there... anyhow. I've been making the anti-fatigue items, the girdle and boots, I can't remember the names. Boots are easy, but a lot of my commanders can't wear them. Girdles I only have one or two mages that can make them. I have some spell focuses (do they help with priest-casters against undead?) and I've been making the spears that shoot solar flares and giving them to my starchildren since their mind blasts will be useless. Umm, the flameshooting helms - fire blasts should be good against undead, right?