MA Ulm Pretender

Endoperez · #1 March 16th, 2008, 01:39 PM

15 elephants killed 14 of the 15 Cave Drakes in two turns. That helps, but it's nowhere as good as I had hoped.

Turn 6 rush will be different than turn 10 or 16 rush, but if you're expanding with Elephants and research with mages who can Soul Slay and teleport if you get the research done. Arcos does the same thing regardless of when it rushes.

Arcos can reach level 3 research on turn 7, with mages teleporting on turn 8, without difficulty, on Easy research, with fire dragon. So on easy research at least, starting rush on turn 6 with elephants and pretender, and teleporting in mages for the important battle, is quite doable. I'm not sure if they could have Soul Slay for that battle, but I doubt it.

It can't be done on normal research, not so quickly. Which have you been thinking about?

B0rsuk · #2 March 16th, 2008, 01:50 PM

Does anyone actually play on Easy research in MP ?!?! I thought many people agree evocations make other parts of the game insignificant by midgame. Why make it worse ?

Endoperez · #3 March 16th, 2008, 01:57 PM

Blitz games are played on Easy.

Baalz · #4 March 16th, 2008, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Endoperez said:
15 elephants killed 14 of the 15 Cave Drakes in two turns. That helps, but it's nowhere as good as I had hoped.

Hmmm, I hadn't actually tried that out, I thought they'd do better than that based on how well crushers work with that strat. I have used crushers and they work pretty darn good, just one crusher and that huge mass of of elephants looks like it runs into a brick wall - though you probably want to use a couple to keep the elephants from just going around.

Endoperez · #5 March 16th, 2008, 02:13 PM

Crushers are size 6, Cave drakes size 4. So they don't stop the elephants.

Baalz · #6 March 16th, 2008, 03:16 PM

Ah, yes, for some reason I was thinking they were size 6. That makes sense then.

Endoperez · #7 March 16th, 2008, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Baalz said:
Ah, yes, for some reason I was thinking they were size 6. That makes sense then.

I thought they might be, as well.

CUnknown · #8 March 16th, 2008, 03:29 PM

So, it's true that an awake combat pretender helps Ulm (or really any faction) survive to the midgame. I also think it's true that Ulm has particular difficulties surviving an early elephant rush -- that sort of rush is normally difficult to stop, but for Ulm it may mean death 90% of the time if done by a skilled player and you as Ulm don't have allies to back you up.

Baalz suggests that Ulm has the tools to stop an elephant rush, and he's right, as he showed. But I still think most people agree that a different faction would stand up better than Ulm to this same rush.

But, how often does an elephant rush happen? How many elephant rushers are there in middle age, three? (Caelum, Arcos, Bandar Log) If all three of these have signed up to a game, you might want to think twice before signing up as Ulm.

But, normally, maybe only one of these three will be present. And the odds that you will be bordering them as Ulm aren't huge. And then the odds that the elephant rusher gets rushed himself or otherwise forced into a war with someone other than you..

I mean, sure maybe we've identified a weakness for Ulm. But, it's a weakness that affects only like, what, 5% of games? Is it really worth fretting so much over? At least the major rushing worry, super-blessed sacreds, has been lessened a lot for Ulm due to the current patch. So, Ulm right now has good odds for surviving most rushes, imo.

Now maybe someone should come up with a rush build for Ulm. I wonder what that would look like. Is it possible?

Xietor · #9 March 16th, 2008, 03:37 PM

I think Abysia is just as vulnerable as Ulm to an Elephant rush. But many races have no need to take an awake pretender.

They have tough castle bought troops that can hold out for the 1st year.

vfb · #10 November 23rd, 2008, 11:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xietor

I think Abysia is just as vulnerable as Ulm to an Elephant rush. But many races have no need to take an awake pretender.

They have tough castle bought troops that can hold out for the 1st year.

MA Aby has Beast Trainers, who have Animal Awe+3. I took a 12-elephant indy province in MP at the end of year 1, with just 1 Trainer and minor chaff lost, using 2 Beast Trainers, 2 indy commanders wielding Rat Tails (built by Wolf Tribe Shamans I'd been hiring to try to get a D1), my starting army, some free event militia, and a few salamanders.

There was no real loss building Beast Trainers instead of mages at the second fort (actually I had 3 forts because I got a freebie from luck-3) because I'm using drain-2 scales anyway.

Aby can also build H3's at all forts, for Smite.

Edit: Whoops, sorry to have gone all OT!