MA Ulm Pretender

[Baalz]

Baalz said:
Admittedly I haven't been on the receiving end of an elephant rush orchestrated by you, that might be fun to try as I have beat back other rushes playing Ulm. Ignoring castle-recruitment constraints for a second, for the price of 3 elephants you get 2 smiths plus change. Obviously this isn't scalable because you can only recruit one smith per castle, but still given Ulm's typical early gold advantage and urgent castle building it's not unreasonable to expect to be able to field 10-12 smiths by the time you're looking at a 20 strong elephant force threatening you - and without permanently crippling your research curve. Assuming you marched a force as you describe into my territory at the end of year one I'd counter by trying to catch you as you attacked (shouldn't be hard) so you're running into about 40 PD backed by the dozen or so smiths leading whatever of the halberd wielding infantry I could scrape up over a couple turns from my multiple castles and prod-3 edge (likely in the 100-120 man range). Your initial elephant charge will be broken by 7 or 8 smiths spamming Bonds of Fire. It won't stop them all but they'll trickle in several at a time rather than in one overwhelming mass as even the ones not hit will have to run around those that are. While causing some damage, they'll quickly be surrounded and hacked to pieces by halberds. Meanwhile my remaining smiths begin raining magma bolts down into the elephants strung out by the fire bonds while my black plate keeps friendly fire from being too much of an issue. All the while your astrologers are popping 4-5 of my infantry per turn out of probably close to 200. By the end of the battle you've killed mostly my PD (which were in the front) and are out close to 2000 gold of elephants.

I tried this out to see how it worked.

Team Arco:

25 elephants : 2500 gold
20 hypaspists : 300 gold
5 mystics : 900 gold
total : 3700 gold

Elephants and hypaspists in one large group, all the way forward. Mystics scripted to mind burn X5

Team Ulm:
12 Master smiths: 1680 gold
90 chainmail + battleaxe infantry = 900 gold
16 arbalests (had them sitting around from initial expansion) = 160 gold
40 PD = 820 gold
total : 3560

Infantry set just back and flanking PD on each side.
All smiths set to magma bolt X2, bonds of fire X3

Round 1: Magma bolts & arbalests kill 4 elephants and severely damage many more as they charge across the open ground. A couple Ulmish infantry popped by mind burn.

Round 2: Several more elephants dropped by magma bolts and over half of them are at least down to 2/3rds HP, elephants hit PD and cause minor damage having used most of their movement to close so only a little trampling.

Round 3: About a third of the remaining elephants are trapped by bonds of fire and another third killed by the infantry (many of the elephants were quite low on HP from the magma bolts). Arco breaks, but most of the elephants are trapped by bonds of fire and killed by the advancing infantry.

Final tally (excluding PD deaths):
20 elephants killed (the 5 that got away were badly afflicted)
6 hypaspists killed
0 astrologers killed

14 Ulmish infantry killed


So, there's a fairly concrete response to those who claim Ulm has no chance against elephants. This is a simple case and I'd expect the Arco player to pull a trick or two, but it's clearly not impossible for Ulm to win.

[Xietor]

Good analysis Baalz. Give Ulm a try.

But Arcos will use astrologers, not mystics. And by the time Ulm has magma bolts, arcos will have soul slay.

Other issue is Ulm is not likely to get that build up if it faces an awake dragon raiding its lands, while its pretender is asleep, or is a 10 hp arch mage. The dragon may just be sitting on Ulm's capital on turn 3 or 4 and how do you get it off with a sleeping pretender and infantry?

[Tuidjy]

Baalz: Ha ha ha!

[Baalz]

If you take, as suggested, an awake rainbow pretender and spend the first several turns researching you hit bonds of fire and magma bolts very quickly, and soul slay isn't really much better than mind burn against Ulmish infantry - I don't think that would have made any difference at all. I actually did use astrologers in the test, just mistyped.

As to the dragon, that's really kind of a different question, we were talking about elephants. A dragon sitting on your cap on turn 4 is quite a different ball of wax and is a challenge for many nations outside of whatever is following it up. Lets give this a try though...you've got an awake rainbow mage and in a total surprise a dom-10 dragon plops down and takes out all the PD in your capital on turn 4. I'll go ahead and make some assumptions: you've got a 4 strength dominion on your cap (you've had a pretender sitting there plus a temple plus the capital spread for 4 turns), you've got 3 master smiths, and you've got one expansion army with an arbalest squad outside your capital as well as a handful of infantry, you've also been researching thaumaturgy to pick up bonds of fire.

Depending on what the research actually is on your pretender, stall for a turn or two until you hit thaum-2. In the mean time your expansion army grabs a few more provinces (make sure you cut off all retreat routes for the dragon) and you try to find barbarians, or lizards, or any low resource/high damage indies to recruit (bonus, you'll probably take them easily with your arbalests) or mercenaries. A couple turns after the dragon appeared you attack with whatever you've been able to scrape up - which obviously will vary quite a bit, but you open the fight with your pretender cursing the dragon then casting berserkers a couple times on your biggest weapon carrying dudes, while your three smiths spam bonds of fire. Your prophet casts a bunch of sermons of courage and your expansion forces probably have a star or two so they've got fairly good moral and can hopefully take a swing or two despite the awe even without the berserk. The dragon is in significant enemy dominion with the accompanying penalties, is held for awhile with no real defense or chance to cause damage or make fear rolls, is cursed, and is being hacked at by berserk battleaxes (dare I hope you had a couple black knights?) who ignore his awe as well as being focussed on by arbalests at presumably short range. After the berserkers you can have your pretender cast frighten X 2. Dragon, taking some damage, is in enemy dominion, hit with 2 15 fear attacks and facing the extra moral check of lone combatants will route and die. Depending on how many arbalests and your actual mix of troops you might do better to skip the berserkers and just do frighten X4.

Now, this set you back a couple turns, but your enemy lost his pretender and you're hardly crippled.

Heck though, seems like the dragon would potentially have trouble just taking out the capital PD. Facing 25 arbalests in enemy dominion...14 AP damage focussed on a single guy with no shield or buffs and ignoring awe...seems like he'd need to win before they reloaded and fired at close range to have a chance.

[Xietor]

I think you script the dragon to hold 4 times then attack archers. Your mages would be casting spells that tire themselves out, but the dragon is oor of bonds fire etc.

Meanwhile arcos teleports in 5 astologers to support the dragon and they are casting mind burn the entire time. Assuming also arcos capital is 3 provinces from ulm's as seems to be the case in most mp games with spacing, then the reinfocement elephants should be getting close as well.

Baalz you have excellent ideas, and are a very good player. But the fact remains Ulm in my experience always dies early.
Not every person playing ulm is going to be a hall of fame player.

While it is certainly possible you could put up a good defense against a rush, I have seen proof with my own eyes that most players cannot. And that is why my suggestion to take an awake sc pretender is a good idea for the average player.

And I am using gameextremeists's arcos rush tactics as an example, but he was better than the typical player at rushing with arcos. But he did use an awake dragon to bolster his early rush. And teleporting astrologers in to bolster his forces was another of his common tactics.

[Zeldor]

Baalz:

Yeah, dragon could have some problems with that PD, though your anti-dragon tactic does not seem viable. Waiting few turns, getting indie reinforcements? His elephant army would be in your capitol by then to reinforce the dragon. Or any other force - he will need army to siege the fort and he will want to do it fast.

[thejeff]

Definitely seems like we're changing the rules from step to step here. Is there a worst case scenario where Ulm can't win? Sure. True for everyone. Is Ulm completely doomed without an awake SC pretender? No.

You've now set up a scenario where they have to start within a few provinces of an elephant nation with a flying Monster pretender, who happens to send his starting scout out in the right direction, or accidentally land his dragon on Ulm's capital in a blind jump. (Do people actually attack blind with flying pretenders? Guaranteed death on a retreat and no idea what you're facing?)

[Baalz]

thejeff said:
Definitely seems like we're changing the rules from step to step here. Is there a worst case scenario where Ulm can't win? Sure. True for everyone. Is Ulm completely doomed without an awake SC pretender? No.

You've now set up a scenario where they have to start within a few provinces of an elephant nation with a flying Monster pretender, who happens to send his starting scout out in the right direction, or accidentally land his dragon on Ulm's capital in a blind jump. (Do people actually attack blind with flying pretenders? Guaranteed death on a retreat and no idea what you're facing?)

Right, exactly my point. A SC pretender is a perfectly fine choice, my point is Ulm is viable without one. I will take issue though with the fact that I suggested a strategy based on scraping up what I can on turn 4 worst case scenario and now its morphed into astrologers teleporting in (a thaum-3 spell...while having no pretender to research) and elephants on top of the dragon by turn 6. That storm is a bit too perfect I think, and I don't think a SC pretender is going to help too much if the deck is so stacked against you.

[Xietor]

I guess my MP experience is a small sample, but Ulm is typically the 1st to die in every game i have played. Shrug.

Why is that if they are so good?

[B0rsuk]

Baalz inspired me to run a test.

Arcoscephale: blue dragon, dom 10.
Ulm: awake rainbow pretender, dom4.

I forgot to appoint prophets. For simplicity sake I didn't move Ulm army out of capital, it was set on Defend anyway.
The dom10 blue dragon attacks 25 Ulm PD at capital on turn 4. Orders are 'attack rear'. (Perhaps I could do better, I never did such things before)
All arbalests miss.
The blue dragon attacks and hits the melee infantry group. Arbalests don't fire, they walk forward and engage the dragon in melee.
Halberds and pikes deal some damage. Arbalests fire again.
The Dragon retreats into enemy territory and dies. This was on the first try, I didn't do any more tests. I could've backed up the turn files, I guess.

Moral of the story: beating 25 Ulm PD is not trivial for a dom10 blue dragon. It's a gamble.