MA Ulm Pretender

[Endoperez]

Jazzepi said:
You can raid with her all day long, even after DTD starts being cast.

Mmm, Princess of Death! Does she wear an Ankh around her neck?

[Shovah32]

Don't worry, Jazzepi is just a little gender confused .

And my worries about raiding were: teleporting mages with dust to dust along with the fact that alot of nations with dust to dust could also have death mages with their PD.

[Xietor]

Again, if you are Ulm and facing an elephant rush you need your pretender to fight, not forge etc. and solar rays can be researched very quickly. And the pod cannot stand up to solar rays.

That is why, in my humble opinion, the best pretender for withstanding an early elephant rush is Father of Winters. D magic is easy to tie in to. you do not really have to have a death pretender to end up with tartarians in the endgame.

[Tuidjy]

Tawn, a great sage is better than anything but a rainbow ghost king unless you
are attacked. By taking one, you guarantee that if you are attacked in the
first twenty turns, you will lose the game. It is not just elephants that will
tear your armies up. A SC pretender backed up by a decent army and high level
priests will also make short work of Ulm's smiths and troops.

I just finished a three way MA game with Ulm against Caelum and Man. I was
extremely lucky as I found the Mirror Wall Palace, one of the enchantress forests,
and the Daoine Sidhe hill (never seen it before), and because the map placement
stuck Man between Caelum and me. Still, there was a moment in the middle game,
when my Pretender was everything that stood between Caelum's shock backed
mammoths/thugs and defeat. Yes, my sorceresses could deal with small numbers
of mammoths, and my Daoine Sidhe made fine raiders once I got enough druids to
lead/bless/berserk them. But Ulm still has a huge mid game period in which it
has nothing to throw at non-sacred thugs - Banes and Wraiths in this case.

By the way, my pretender was the air/earth titan, with 4A1W4E3D, and
Order/Production/Misfortune/Drain scales. A small map pretender, by all means,
and probably worse than Xietor's Father of Winter. Still, Ulm needs something
in MP, if the nation wants to hold its head high, as opposed to sending messages
like 'Please, please, let me live, I will forge anything you want until the
end of the game' I have gotten messages like this.

-------

By the way, I did not get a good feel of the usefulness of the new additions,
except for the holy smiths. Man went down too quickly, and my guardians did
not get a chance to kill wardens. The Iron Blizzards killed one thug, but it
was freakish good luck - he managed to get within spitting range, and ran
out of action points - he must have eaten 30 darts... that would have
probably taken out a Tartarian, let alone a wraith lord with no shield.
I did not go for Iron Angels, and as for the lightened armour, indies died to
Ulm just fine before.

But the holy smiths are Heaven sent. One can furnish a castle with lab/temple,
costs half as much to maintain, easily gets to 4E +6 reinvigoration... I love'em.
I hate hearing that they will be getting old age. Ulm is really short on design
points, and thus my Ulm will never get enough growth. Why should they be old,
anyway? Usually it is the young rebels that adopt new trends. And why the hell
are the normal smiths flirting with old age out of the box, anyway? If you're
going to age the holy smiths, make the standard ones younger.

[CUnknown]

Tuidjy -- I agree about making the regular Master Smiths younger. Let them not die of old age, it's a little silly.

Twan admitted that the rainbow strategy was weak against rushes or on small maps. On that kind of map, Ulm really does need the Prince of Darkness build or something like it.

To say that you are guarenteed to be attacked in the first 20 turns if you take a rainbow is just not true.. there's never a guarentee about anything. I agree that it makes it more likely that you will be attacked, how much more so is impossible to say.

Yet, even if you are attacked, you're not defenseless. I know you disagree, but arbelests are actually effective in dealing with people's SC gods. With the CB mod you can have your smiths cast Blindness also in the early game. I think you are seriously underestimating Ulm's power in the early game, especially with the new changes to Guardians. And the +1 morale! That is key.

Although even before, it was not hopeless. With Production-3 and the Ulm production bonus, you have a serious edge on troop production. Black Knights are one of the best non-sacred cavalry out there, and Black Lord thugs are very effective if given a magic weapon. Ulm also has a edge on the mercenary front, given the huge supply of cash they can save up in the early turns.

Elephants can ruin your day, though, no doubt.

Twan - I have a build very much like yours, except for a couple points. I prefer the Great Enchantress, because I think the +1 astral pearl per turn is far better than the research bonus. Also, I don't think that Ulm needs a 5 dominion, either. But, that is being picky. Another nitpick, I would drop Growth and also drop Heat -- Heat is -5% money, Growth is only +2%. I suppose the pop growth would pay that off eventually, but it doesn't seem worth it, imo. Also, dang... how can you get away with not taking production-3 with Ulm (and also not taking an SC god)? I am baffled.. doesn't that slow your early expansion?

Also, I try to go straight for Construction-6, if possible (for lanterns), and then on to Construction-8 if I'm not being attacked. You are in it for the long-haul with this build, and hoping not to be attacked, might as well go the whole 9 yards if you are allowed to do so.

So, the ideal is that you will build a Ring of Wizardry around turn 25 or so with your pearls you have saved up, then move on to artifacts (Hammer of the Forge Lord!), before you've even researched any other school. Pay people off to make friends, share the wealth.

Tuidjy, I know what you are thinking, that this would never work against good opponents, and maybe against the absolute best opponents in some sort of World Series of Dominions it wouldn't work. But in typical games against typical opponents in non-newbie games it usually works fine in my experience.

You seem very concerned about getting rushed early game, but generally isn't it true that you are either double-teamed or are the one double-teaming your opponent? People die when they are double-teamed and are successful when they double-team someone else. So, being worried about how Ulm would fare in a 1v1 rush is a little beside the point. I think it is best to worry about how to get on the right side of that double-team. And Ulm is well equipped with the forge bonus as a diplomatic tool to be able to do that.

Edit: I wanted to add more thing, Xietor's Father of Winter looks like a great SC god. But, I think this same god would be better suited for another faction. Not taking production scales with Ulm is just.. I don't know.. I mean, was it a random game and you were forced to pick Ulm, when you really wanted someone else?

Xietor, you say that Ulm needs an awake SC to deal with elephants and that's true. But the sort of god you threw out there just seems like the kind of god another faction would take. I think it's an attempt to shore up Ulm's weaknesses rather than a build to maximize Ulm's strengths, which I think is a mistake.

I think if you get elephant rushed as Ulm and you have no allies to back you up you just die. I am content with that and would just start another game where I'd hope to do better. Whereas your build, I think, would get you to the midgame where you'd lose just about every time. But that is just my take on it.

[Baalz]

Hmmm, I wonder if CUnknown is actually one of my alter egos I'm not aware of. Your thinking on Ulm is spot on my own. I was going to write a MA Ulm guide until I saw you had written one and it covered basically all the points I would make. I think people really underestimate how effective Ulm's advantages can be in mid game. Focusing on construction early? How weak are those swarms of cheap dudes when buffed with weapons of sharpness and strength of giants while your enemies are earth melded? Magma eruption is arguably the strongest mid-line evocation spell and every one of your 140 gp mages can cast it. Destruction is brutal when cast by several mages in a battle and you should have *lots* of smiths. Then there's that little forge bonus...

As to being defenseless against elephants, I again call phooey. Obviously this boils down to player skill, but a couple reasonable counters come to mind depending on what you've got available- again, keeping in mind what Ulm does have going for it. With Ulm you should have a couple castles up pretty fast and plenty of smiths to field if you're rushed. Magma bolts. Bonds of fire. Body ethereal (from pretender, smith randoms, mercenaries, lizard shamans, sages - you only need a couple S1 mages) cast on 12 or so Black Knights can easily take out a similar gold cost of elephants. Assuming you took a rainbow pretender depending on your research paths you can combine the above with panic/terror and all the classic MR check counters. My preference is also the enchantress for Ulm and I find it very viable.

Personally, I research some of the above spells for exactly this reason before I begin focusing on construction. If you do end up being rushed, push through for destruction or magma eruption depending on what's coming at you. With just those spells a handful of smiths can beat back some pretty strong advances by just hiding behind PD meatshields.

[Twan]

Between prod 2 and prod 3 the difference isn't big for early expansion. Having a forest or a mountain near your capitol makes more difference (and anyway if you have only farmlands/swamps around Ulm is screwed). I prefer growth to reduce the old age affliction chances of the priest smiths (and heat... I always take 1 heat or 1 cold as temperatures varies with seasons anyway) and offer a little increase of income as we speak about a long game on big map.

Then I prefer the great sage because it give the edge on research even against other rainbows, and for some more turns against magic nations, but I agree the enchantress is a good choice too (probably better if you aren't lucky with site searching).

I find rushing straight to construction 8 risky. With the new evocation spells I find more logical to learn some battle magic first, and gnome lore is a must have since early game too.

Then my choice of searching conjuration 6 before construction 8 is discuttable, as someone really rushing the artefacts may beat Ulm. But I prefer to summon some spectres as early as possible to have more than one mage with death, to search sites or summon bane lords (of course if I have no death income by turn 20 I'd rather skip this phase, trolls kings don't worth the effort as you have hordes of earth mages).

[jaif]

For my own amusement, I made a 10 space random map and played a little test between arcos and ulm. I built 7 ulm black knights and set them on the front lines with attack nearest. I built 4 elephants and did the same command. The commanders I left on the back lines with "stay behind troops" so they wouldn't interfere.

Ulm wiped the floor with them twice, killing 3 than 2 with no losses. I tried a 3rd time, and ulm lost 5 knights out of 7, kill 2 elephants. Ulm routed, the elephants routed, and the arcos commander won the fight.

Obviously 3 quick fights aren't a wonderful test case, but the shock from black knights is enough to kill elephants pretty easily. Also obviously, support forces and tactics can change the equation, but that works both ways.

-Jeff

P.S. 7 knights - 385 gold. 4 elephants - 400 gold