Mod Nation Playing Guides

[Burnsaber]

SlipperyJim, mind if I disagree a bit with your views? I have a slight beef with your assesments on blesses.

When deciding for a bless with Ulm Reborn, you need to take into account that you have 3 notably different sacred troop chassises - since you most likely will be using all of them, you need to find a bless that serves them all.

You have the Penitents, good attack power but the resilience of a air balloon. You'll have tons of these lying around in no time (since they are freespawns), why not give them a bless take actually benefit on?

You have the Anchorite, it's your only recruitable sacred outside capitol -> you'll also have lots of these lying around. They're tough as nails, but low hp.

Then you have the capitol only sacreds -> Black Templars and Neugeboren Guards. Tough elites with high encumberance and low mr with only weaknesess's.

Fire bless is cool, but your sacreds already have good weapons, good strenght and good attack values (expect for Anchorties, but you can't have everything), why try to fix something that's not broken?

Yeah, Air bless just sucks.

Water, 50% quickness is just plain awesome, believe me. The defense bonus is good for your Black Templars. 16 def is pretty nice. Makes your slow sacreds reach melee faster (good for Anchorites especially). This bless is useful for all of your sacreds.

Earth, it's obvious that this bless is good for your Black Templars and Neugeborens. They need that reinvogration. The thing is; it's not that hot on Anchorites and Penitents. Anchorites have enc 0 and already amazing prot. Besides, most your opponent will be bringing AP and AN weapons against you anyways, raising your prot doesn't really help then. Also, why take a pretender with high earth magic? You've got that path well covered by your national mages.

Astral, this doesn't seem like much of a bless, but you need to remember that it's DIRT CHEAP (just look at Oracle). The MR bonus is very good for all of your sacred, who'll be facing a lot of magic in the battlefield. Most players also make the mistake of underestimating the "Twist Fate" effect. It basically doubles the estimated lifetime of your Penitents. And ingoring that first rain of crossbow bolts on your Anchorites? Freaking priceless.

Death, nothing to see here, move along.

Nature, regeneration is only good for troops that have either 1) high hp (over 15+) 2) good survival time on the battlefield. your sacreds have neither. Sure, Neugeborens and Templars can survive, but ot for long before they die to fatique. What's the use of regenerating 2 hp per turn when your opponent can puch through your armor? It's also quite useless on Penitens and Archorites.

Blood, nothing to see here.

IMHO, when deciding for a bless with Ulm Reborn, I think that it's critical that you assess it's power for all of your sacred troops. You can't really focus on only one of them. Sure Neugeborens and Templars are really nice, but they're capital only and they can't be everywhere.

I'm currently playing W9S9 Oracle with Ulm Reborn on MP and it's working out great. Sure, my Black Templars tire out fast, but DAMN are they excellent shock troops.

[Shovah32]

You guys aren't using E9 on the Ulm Reborn sacreds? I find that weird. Sure, it doesn't help pentients but the reinvigoration is great for capitol only sacreds and your mages and the protection bonus is great - E9 is usually quite poor on low-medium protection troops but even a slight protection boost on high protection troops gives them a huge boost.

[llamabeast]

I'm playing Marmoset as Ulm Reborn at the moment, and did the opposite of SlipperyJim on virtually every point. I find that quite pleasing really - there are always so many ways to play Dominions!

I'll say more when the game's over, if I remember.

[Sombre]

Nice to see a bit of debate going on regarding the best UR bless. Let me weigh in on this briefly


Bless: Your sacreds are many and varied; recruitable Neugeboren Guard (elite heavy infantry), Black Templars (Knights), Penitent (Upgraded freespawn flagellants), Anchorites (High prot armour mini-golems who turn into penitent when hurt). Virtually all your commanders are sacred and you get quite a variety of sacred mages. You also get a flying undead sacred troop summon. Clearly a good bless is very iportant for this nation. Arguably, so is a high dominion if you're going to make extensive use of anchorites or penitent (you'll need high dom to mass them). The cap only sacreds are expesive enough that you won't be too restricted by the holy limit.

Water: A low water bless isn't a good pick. It's marginally useful on the Templars but that's about it. W9 is very nice on the Templars and greatly helps the NG/Penitent/Anchorites get to combat before taking too much ranged damage.

Fire: NG and Templar don't need that much help hitting or dealing damage, while anchorites deal enough damage but can sometimes find it hard to hit. The real unit that benefits from the F9 bless is the Penitent - they have a weapon with two attacks and with F9 they suddenly become hard hitting though fragile suicide troops. If you're going to use some sort of penitent heavy strat, it's probably the best 9 bless available.

Earth: Anchorites, NG and Templar already have stellar protection and as such an E9 blessing is mixed. On the one hand it makes them /very/ hard to kill, on the other their main vulnerability is to stuff that ignores prot anyway like poison, mr spells, shock etc. The reinvig bonus doesn't help the anchorites but is very effective on the NG and pretty good on the Templar. Additionally you have a slew of sacred mages who benefit quite a bit from it. The problem with E9 is that the penitent don't benefit from it AT ALL, so if you're going to be using them as a major part of your forces, you shouldn't take it.

Nature: Basically Penitent and Anchorites have no interest in this bless at all. Black Templars have some interest in it, but it isn't optimal for them. To the thug commanders it is useful and a nature heavy pretender isn't a bad idea at all, because UR have no access to nature. NGs do benefit quite a bit from this because of their solid hp, high price and tendency to survive a long time in combat, but it isn't the hottest bless for them imo. UR doesn't really have old age problems, so the regeneration vs disease trick isn't very important.

Air: Obviously don't take A9 here. But a minor bless must be considered. For NG and Templar, it's worthless. For Anchorites it's actually ok as they hate crossbow bolts and turn into penitent who retain the bless. For penitent this is obviously rather useful. However even with a relatively high air shield, if the shot gets through, the penitent is most likely dead, so it doesn't allow you to stick them right in the line of fire.

Death: Theoretically this would be good for Penitent to chip away at high prot units. Also be aware you have many sacred casters and they are capable of casting stuff like blade wind, earthquake, rain of stones etc.

Astral: All UR troops can use the mr, that's for sure. Twist fate is also very handy on penitent who die in the face of a slight breeze. If you're planning on using penitent extensively, it might be an idea. It's also ok for anchorites, but basically worthless for NG and Black Templar, who can afford to get hit.

Blood: The strength is unimportant for all units except the penitent, who benefit greatly from it. Still, offensively fire bless is better for them. I tried F9B9 in one build and it was overkill. Why B9 you ask? Because if you're using a million penitent you expect them to die /a lot/ and you'll actually have to lose them fairly often to avoid starvation. If they die and leave behind curse and horror mark, they get a bit more annoying for the enemy. Penitent are almost the tailor made unit to redeem B9, but it still isn't actually that good.

[SlipperyJim]

Um, wow. I didn't mean to kick off any controversy!

So ... here's the thing. I don't really care for the Anchorites (no offense, Sombre!), so I don't use 'em. My offensive armies are made of Black Templars and Reborn Guards. Swarms of the free Penitent cheese provide arrow-fodder. Every army gets at least one White Priest, a few Black Priests (for Penitent reinforcements), and one or more of Ulm Reborn's spectacular "thug" commanders.

Those choices undoubtedly bias my bless strategy. I really like a F9N6 bless for Ulm Reborn. My sacreds hit really, really hard. Better yet, they can counter Ethereal troops without any magical backup. Regeneration protects them from the odd scratch that manages to penetrate their lovely armor. A Nature-skilled pretender also allows me to craft the Nature supply items (Cauldrons, Wineskins), and it gives me a chance to cast my favorite global: Gift of Health. F9N6-blessed Ulm Reborn troops tear through the opposition like an acetylene torch through tissue paper, and they're very hard to stop.

Then again, as Llamabeast wrote:

I find that quite pleasing really - there are always so many ways to play Dominions!

Amen, my friend. Maybe I'll try a W9N4 bless the next time I play Ulm Reborn....

...

Anyway, does anyone have anything to add about the rest of my strategy guide? Did I actually manage to get the rest of it right?

[Morkilus]

Ulm Reborn is a blast to play, and is pretty well-balanced. I'm not surprised there's a variety of opinion on how to do it best! Maybe I'll put my Avernum strategy guide up soon

[Digress]

llamabeast isn't running with a W9N4 bless in Marmoset

You will have to keep guessing SlipperyJim.

[SlipperyJim]

Digress said:
llamabeast isn't running with a W9N4 bless in Marmoset

You will have to keep guessing SlipperyJim.

I never said he was. I simply said that I would probably run W9N4, because it would be different from my preferred F9N4 bless.

The llama-man is probably running something totally bizarre like B9A4. Then again, since I'm not playing in Marmoset, it's really none of my business.