Mid Game - Newb in Need

[Arralen]

[quote]Originally posted by PDF:

[qb]
4. Castles - What is the best guidlines to use when setting up a network? What kind of situations should I look for in determining a site? What situations should I avoid? .. Is it wise to build a network of forts on the front line for defense and rely on my inner provences to recruit sodiers from?

Your castles should be located either :
* in a defensive position to deny easy conquest by enemy
* and/or in a resource rich province with rich neighbors you control : a castle allows for adding its Admin% of all the neighboring provinces resource.
That's surely why you get 200+resources in one case and only 60 in another- it was put on a poor province...

Not quite completely answered:

A province without a castle gives you only 1/2 ressource value. THAT's why you have very high ressource values in some provinces and not in others.

So basically a castle is a location where you'll levy most of your troops.

It's pretty obvious that there are 4 reasons to build a castle:

- to use a high ress.-Province (esp. with likely provinces adjacent) to build lots of ressource- heavy, nation-specific troops

- to boost the ressource-value of a province with some urgendly needed troop-type

- to protect temples/labs (e.g. at a special site that gives mages) from flying or stealthy raiding parties

- to block bottlenecks on the map

A.

[apoger]

>5. Armies - Can anyone give an example, playing as Ulm, what their favorite Army Groups looked like....

Front: Blocks of HI. From capital, Guardians. From other forts, either Pikeneer or Battleaxe (pro-15 Version). Pike for light enemies, axe for armored enemies. Sometimes a block of Black Knights if I anticipate having to block size-3 tramplers like Minotaurs or Shambler Thralls.

Behind: Missile troops from independent conquests. Anything I can get that can be produced in bulk. Shortbow, longbow, crossbow, it's all good.

Add: Master Smiths, casting Summon Earth Power, Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants. Sometimes Blade Wind, Magma Eruption, or Earth Meld.


That's Ulm 101, and it's pretty good.

[OG_Gleep]

Thanks a bunch guys. These tips really helped.

PDF - I hadn't thought about having 1 squad per commander. I guess that would make more sense, if you lose the only commander, its game over.


Do you guys send commanders in to fight? I had sent my god in at the start of the game. I picked a Maticore. Awesome combat machine, but now he has like 5 battle afflictions. That and he has about 100 times the HP of my commanders. Seems like a big gamble sending them in.


One more question: Are there any favorite item combos that you guys have? I noticed that some items have weaknesses that can be negated by other items. Was wondering if there are any uber combos.

General Example: Armor (Awesome protection, but spikes fatigue) + Bracer (Eliminates Fatigue)

There are ways to get rid of afflictions on your Manticore.

1. Keeping him from getting them! The best and simplist way is to not get hit (High Protection, Defense, Spells). The second is Regeneration. You are less likely to recieve an affliction when regenerating.

2. Gift of Health (for you, but note some other nation/themes have some other options). This is a Nature spell at Enchantment 5.

3. Magic Artifact, the Chalice. Hard to get, but it will take away afflictions.

4. Kill your God and Call him back. He'll be less powerful magically (-1 to all magic paths) but he will come back fresh as a daisy (sometimes he'll have a minor affliction, but most of the time he'll be all good)

As for commanders, I usually will not have a commander who is commanding a squad fight, unless he is qualified as a 'super combatant'. Because if your commander dies you won't be able to command them unless you have one who can command the men in his place. Though if you have replacements, you can do so without fear.

This is not the case with the "Super Combatant". These usually have alot of survivability and are pretty well protected, though they may rout or die too so don't think they are invulnerable . Most supercombatants are Pretenders and Summoned creatures.

With Ulm your magical 'combos' are pretty limited. For casting spells these are some of the better.

(As Alex noted) Summon Earthpower, Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants. Blade Wind, Magma Eruption, Earth Meld, Weapons of Sharpness

For items. There are so many it's hard to say unless you are asking what type of 'supercombatant' you are trying to equip. I wouldn't equip any normal commander with anything except maybe a Horn of Valor (to combat some of Ulm's Morale issues).

Edit: Changed the commander routing portion.

[ January 14, 2004, 06:10: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Zen:
As for commanders, I usually will not have a commander who is commanding a squad fight, unless he is qualified as a 'super combatant'. Because if your commander routs (fails a morale check by getting hit or feared) or dies everyone under their command will rout.

I don't think that this is true. Routing is only forced from commander death if you have no commanders on the field whatsoever, so a mage with a leadership of 10 can keep 2000 troops from autorouting.

Edit: Graeme is correct. Your army will only autorout if there are no commanders on the battlefield. I don't know if there is any negative penalty for being leaderless, it doesn't seem to have an effect.

[ January 14, 2004, 05:34: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Others have answered the essential points. I'll add just one more tip:

It may not seem obvious, but don't neglect Blood Magic with Ulm. Empower a Smith in blood (up to blood 3). Forge Blood Stones and give them to your support mages so they can cast (with Earth Boots and Summon Earthpower) level 5 battle spells like Weapons of Sharpness (these mages can also Petrify/paralyze things with ease).

Don't lose time binding Demon Knights or Devils with that mage, though Hordes from Hell may be OK. Otherwise have him do what he's best for: a Lifelong Protections for 10 slaves, or a Soul Contract for 40 (pays for itself in 6 turns) are quite a bargain. And if you want that Father Illearth, it's unlikely someone will beat you to it - your competitors will rather race for Ice Devils.