MA Ulm Pretender

[Xietor]

Until they cast touch of madness on the elephants.

A bigger fear early is arcos. if they have 2-3 astrologers with their elephants solar rays can mess up undead pretty bad, caelum get lightning early, and ulm cannot make rings sr protection. Bandar log can also cast solar rays.

Father of Winters can cast resist lighting, has superior hps,
and would give Ulm access to 3 new paths. And he is extremely hard to kill once he gets decked out and buffs.

[Shovah32]

An awake Prince of Death with Dom9-10, D5(or more) and possibly some earth magic(E/D makes shadow brands, earth gives him ironskin/invunerability) really helps Ulm. Stops alot of early rushes, particularly elephants - and now with new and improved guardians to stop dangerous sacred rushes you should do well early on.

Get him ironskin and some basic equipment and he should be ready to go and beat on some enemies. Black Plate Infantry do far better against PD than against big, well scripted armies(the difference is bigger than it is for most other units) so if you can get your Prince of Death to target fairly large armies and leave your troops to mop up you can actually take out one or two enemies early on - I mean who will expect to be rushed by Ulm?

Later on, your pretender can help diversify your magic. Spectres and much later Tartarians can greatly broaden your available magic paths and demiliches can get you heavily into death. He can also summon banelords ect midgame for you to cheaply thug out.

[Xietor]

Several viable choices for pretender. And many experienced mp may have many different preferences.

One thing I think all would agree with though, is that Ulm must take an awake pretender that can fend off an elephant rush.

[Jazzepi]

Shovah32 said:
An awake Prince of Death with Dom9-10, D5(or more) and possibly some earth magic(E/D makes shadow brands, earth gives him ironskin/invunerability) really helps Ulm. Stops alot of early rushes, particularly elephants - and now with new and improved guardians to stop dangerous sacred rushes you should do well early on.

Get him ironskin and some basic equipment and he should be ready to go and beat on some enemies. Black Plate Infantry do far better against PD than against big, well scripted armies(the difference is bigger than it is for most other units) so if you can get your Prince of Death to target fairly large armies and leave your troops to mop up you can actually take out one or two enemies early on - I mean who will expect to be rushed by Ulm?

Later on, your pretender can help diversify your magic. Spectres and much later Tartarians can greatly broaden your available magic paths and demiliches can get you heavily into death. He can also summon banelords ect midgame for you to cheaply thug out.

PoD is amazing for Ulm. My build for him involves this.

2x Black Kite Shields
1x Steel Helm
1x Black Steel Full Plate
1x Boots of Behemoth (Note, PoD can take out any indies without these due to fear, but this actually gives him the ability to get kills instead of just routing the enemy when you start fighting actual armies)
2x Bracers of Protection

The above build is completely built out of earth magic items and is absolutely ridiculous What you really want though is a lucky amulet, and probably an amulet of antimagic for the misc slots. Or maybe something like a ring of elemental magic protection depending on who you are fighting.

Jazzepi

[Xietor]

I did a duel between Ulm and arcos. Used awake pod 6d 9 dominion. In a fight with arcos, in Ulm dominion, POD started with 99 hps and 21 mr. He has a level 2 priest and 1 mage cast earth shards, lots skellies, 10 guardians, and 50 crossbows.

Arcos has 15 elephants mixed with heart companions(about 20),
1 priestess(prophet), and 6 astrologers with evoc 2 research.

3 astrologers died to crossbow fire, but the other 3 using solar rays made short work of the pod. Since 2 of the elephant rush nations have strong astral mages, and the other has strong air, my personal preference remains the Father of Winters.

[vfb]

I had big plans to Dust to Dust a PoD built almost exactly like Jazzepi's (but not 2x Bracers of Protection ... are you sure they stack?). But my mages set on Dust to Dust went berserk and charged, oops . Then I got lucky and Smited the PoD to death.

[Cor2]

I have had great luck with dust to dust and maggots agianst PoD. Its almost too easy.

[Jazzepi]

vfb said:
I had big plans to Dust to Dust a PoD built almost exactly like Jazzepi's (but not 2x Bracers of Protection ... are you sure they stack?). But my mages set on Dust to Dust went berserk and charged, oops . Then I got lucky and Smited the PoD to death.

In my testing they did. The 2nd pair was only worth like +1 protection, but I'm a protection whore you know, and since it's relatively inexpensive to forge I threw it on there.

I had TERRIBLE LUCK with dust to dust against your stupid PoD in the first mega game D:

Jazzepi

[Dedas]

vfb said:
I had big plans to Dust to Dust a PoD built almost exactly like Jazzepi's (but not 2x Bracers of Protection ... are you sure they stack?). But my mages set on Dust to Dust went berserk and charged, oops . Then I got lucky and Smited the PoD to death.

It was a PoD built by Jazzepi!



I was so close to crushing your last skeleton spamming mages defending your capitol - *bam*, smited.

[Twan]

Out of duels against elephants or small rush friendly maps I would prefer a rainbow great sage offering real magic diversity and curing the real weakness of the nation : without him the magic race is lost.

my build : great sage F3 A2 W2 S3 E2 D2 N3 B1, dom 5, order 3, prod 2, misf 2, growth 1, drain 3, heat 1

26 RP / turn may look a negligible advantage but having them since the beginning can snowballs more than being one of the numerous players with a totally unimaginative awake SC chassis.

4 forts with lab (economize on temples) must be built as soon as possible, and researchers the priority, even if the price is taking just one province/turn when ennemies take 2 or 3 the first year.

Evo 3 and thaum 2 will be researched fast so priest smiths and others start to be usefull on the battlefield and can cast gnome lore (and augury sometimes), then Con 6 for lanterns and powerful boosters, Evocation 6, enchantment *or* conjuration 6 to be able to summon some thugs -or if you have nature or astral income early, target a gem producing global the sage can cast with boosters, ench 7 for stellar focus or alt 5 for mother oak, but don't search levels 5+ in more than one school out of conjuration & evocation-, and then go for construction 8 before other endgame magics.

With construction 6 reached around turn 20-25 and many lanterns forged as soon it's possible (fire gems may be the problem, and so should be the first trade objective) only nations taking magic 3 may beat you in the magic race, even if the sage now forge boosters or search sites.

Also reaching construction 6 fast and being able to forge items of many paths is an huge diplomatic advantage. You can furnish what your neighbour need and can't forge and you have a small territory but hard to take with all your forts, you don't look like a threat and your weak dominion don't spoils neighbours magic scales. You must be really unlucky if someone attack you with all these goods reasons to take on someone else.

As other nations will often research level 5+ in more than 3 schools because their mages have more possibilities, or go for a level 8 in another school first, the artefact race should be won (or at least you should be one of the first, with a lot to forge).

Once you can make artefacts the difference between a rainbow and a PoD shines : with the boosters you had been able to make you can forge a lot of things at -45% cost with the master smiths having one random, and more with the sage himself. Also a smith with an astral pick can summon golems with the two astral boosters. And the iron angels are summonable with some effort.

And once you have researched conjuration with a booster you have the same capacity to summon spectres (and then liches and tartarians, if you have D2, you'll have D7) but as you are also able to forge nature boosters and the magic rings, you will be able to GoR your tartarians far more easily (and eventually some powerful constructs can also worth to be GoRed before you have access to tartarians).

ps : of course it's a weak strategy
- if someone rush you
- if you have to fight an astral or other MR spells using nation in midgame (no temper the will)
- if your sage die and lose 8 magic levels, killed by the archer of Bogus team the first time he goes out to search some sites near the capitol (happened to me :" )