Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

My goodness this is rather silly, you're being a bit abrasive and I don't really feel like playing "in theory" vs constantly changing scenarios. My comment about being second was in response to the assertion that Ulm always seems to die early, I felt that was relevant. Arrow fend? I thought we were talking about early rushes. If we're talking about 6th level spells lets see how mammoths fare against 15 magma eruption spammers with crusher linebackers. I ran a simple scenario to show that it was quite possible for Ulm to win vs a large group of elephants supported by astrologers in year one without a SC pretender and I didn't use particularly fancy tactics on either side. You're entitled to go on believing whatever the heck you want.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I'm with Baalz here. We could probably run through specific tactics and counter tactics all day without finding something unbeatable when both sides have equal resources(research time ect). I also think Ulm can survive through the early game - even against elephants.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I like Ulm. I'd like to see Ulm as a viable choice. But Ulm can't rush itself, except perhaps with a pretender. Because of that, rushing Ulm is safe. Ulm can react, but it can't counter-rush you.

I have never rushed with elephants, or been rushed against with them. From Tuidjy's post, I think he knows very well how to do it, and what one should have available before considering a rush. He's stating something, and Baalz/Shovah and sometimes me - we are reacting, giving counter-examples to the SPESIFIC example Tuidjy gave. We can always come up with something, given a while, but we'd have had to prepare for it from turn 1 if this were about a real game. We wouldn't know which NATION attacks us, much less about the counters. But rushing? It's easy, just do what you normally do to expand? He'd know what's the best Ulm can throw, it's mages, it's spells, how it's PD is organized and how it moves, what units are available and how they're usually used.

Unless Ulm has something going in for it that would force Tuidjy to change his tactic, we and Ulm is the reactor, the passive side, and the rusher is the aggressor, and the aggressor is in better situation. Tuidjy's plan is, basically "build elephants, research Thaumaturgy, rush". Ulm needs Thaumaturgy for Bonds of Fire to counter an early rush, Evocation for battle whammies and Conjuration or Construction for Summon Earth Power or Earth Boots before it's able to use most of them. Tuidjy can concentrate on Thaumaturgy and get the high Thaumaturgy spells much faster than Ulm can get anything better than Magma Bolts.
It seems to me that unless Ulm gets vastly superior numbers of elite units or of mages, it's trying to negate it's opponents' advantages instead of building on its own strengths. Again, that's passive, that's reacting, that's bad.

If Ulm can actually throw up castles faster than other nations and out-produce others in troops and mages and research; or if there's some as-of-yet undiscovered tactic that's going to make Ulm an early rusher, Ulm's going to be the reactor, the passive one, the one that is rushed, the one that can be killed off early.

I think Tuidjy is right, even though I don't like it. I doubt he likes it either - everyone seems to have a soft spot for Ulm, who are supposed to be awesome but aren't. Ulm is easy to kill in a rush. Good player can beat you, but it's harder than for some other nations.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Good post Endoperez. I agree with that.

I too would like to see ulm a better nation because it is is a cool idea.

If ulm could build castles faster, it may be enough to balance it. And by faster I mean being able to build a forest fortess in 1 turn, and a castle in 2 turns.
As is, it is hard for ulm can not build enough troops, (or smiths) in the early game to be competitive.

Baalz. You if anyone will be able to instruct people to play ulm as effectivly as possible. But the problem is the other nation can use tactics that are just as strong. Ulm could win yes. But that comes down to player skil mattering more then the nation. If the opponent is equally skilled, ulm is at a disadvantage.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Tuidjy:

But would it be true for like 60-70% other nations that either have no bless, no elephants etc? In MA for example TC, Man, C'tis, etc.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Man can throw lightning bolts early on, which do alot of damage.
Tien Chi has access to alot of artillery spells too.
Man and Tien Chi both have nice archers which are very handy.

Ctis has frighten/terror, along with skelespam to keep them busy.

All of those nations also have more magic than Ulm, meaning a very versatile(magically) pretender isn't as necessary.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I've been following this post for some time. Given all that has been said, I would have to say that Endoperez has so far made the wisest observation.

Personally I don't think Ulm needs an awakened SC god. Then again, 'need' is on a case-by-case basis.

I think the first thing the original poster wanted to see was if the new changes to Ulm revised most player's pretender gods. In my case it didn't. My Middle Age Ulm strategy is still an awakened blood fountain with order, production, a little growth, drain, and a little earth magic.

The second thing the original poster wanted to know has evolved into a full blown discussion of rush and anti-rush strategies. The final point of that discussion being that Ulm lacks an aggressive strategy of it's own that can be used to rush with.

Do I agree with this? Not really. However, it is hard to point out any 'big gun', like Ulm's calvary, that isn't extremely limited in production.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

See, the thing is I think this discussion is generally discounting the risk of rushing. Rushing has obvious advantages, which have been pointed out here. It also has *disadvantages* which are not taken into account. An elephant rush, as presented here, is not simply a bonus on top of what you were doing anyway to expand. If you're really pressing an early rush you're doing it at the expense of other expansion - pushing into another player's territory instead of taking easy indies. If you're supporting it with a pretender push you're sacrificing the other things a pretender could be doing for you. The relevant point here is that if the rush is successfully repulsed the rusher is now at a significant disadvantage. If you attack with a dragon pretender on turn 4 and I kill him, you're fairly crippled (long term). If you attack with 25 elephants and I manage to beat them with minimal losses you've just sacrificed 5+ expansion parties and all the relevant opportunity costs. The defender has several built in advantages. PD is an obvious one. Better research/income is generally another as the rusher uses mage turns and design points for rushing rather than growth. Having a chance to react is another one: if elephants attack my border territories I almost certainly have a turn or two to recruit/research specific counters before they threaten my capital. The rusher has advantages, the defender has different ones.

I think it's obvious that in a contest between equally skilled opponents you'll lose more than half the time if your opponent successfully applies a national strength (a strong early rush) against one of your national weaknesses (a slower start). I don't think this means that any nation with a slower start is horribly crippled, it's just one of the weaknesses that you have to consider in your overall plan. Some nations are fairly screwed if they are targeted by an early rush. Some nations have weak research and no astral/death magic and are screwed if they don't take an early lead. Some nations have very specific counters like anti undead/demon spells so they're very screwed if they happen to have a certain type of opponent at a certain stage of the game. Every nation has strengths and weaknesses and some of them are easier to use than others.

Not being able to rush/counter-rush does not mean a nation is crippled. In my experience there's a fairly good mix between the initial fast expander being able to translate that into a win and the tortoises being able to pass the gasping sprinters as they brightly burn out. Being the defender has it's own advantages, and if you're able to capitalize on them you can show the rusher what he's given up to be able to rush.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Turn or two of time to react isn't enough, and furhtermore, AFAIK elephant rush is very easy to convert from expansion to rush. It will take few turns to move about half of your armies (the ones expanding into the other direction) towards the rusheé, and unless your mages can teleport/cloud trapeze/fly you lose some research while they move. Unfortunately, Arcoscephale's fast-moving armies and teleporting mages aren't really slowed down.

If Cave Drakes were viable, they MIGHT work. They are big and have lots of hp, all Ulm's researchers can cast the spell, Ulm has the gems to summon them and Ulm wants Summon Earth Power any way - but spending gems on those is still a waste. 8 gems for 1? You'd probably need about as many as your enemy has elephants, and even 20 elephants would require you to spend 160 gems... Even if you did survive the rush, spending gems against gold will probably cost you the game in the long run.

EDIT: even equal numbers of cave drakes are just massacred by the elephants.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Well, I disagree, a few turns to react is significant. If I've got 2 castles up and production-3 scales and my opponent takes 2 turns to gather his forces and 2 more to reach the point he's threatening my capital it's not unreasonable to think I've got 100+ troops recruited specifically to counter him and been able to research a level or two in one path. And again we're getting into this too perfect storm. You can't have an awake expansion pretender, a bunch of gold dumped into elephants, mages marching with the army and thaum-3 researched (teleport keeps being brought up) if you're talking about attacking me on turn 6.

Gah, I seem to have gotten sucked back into playing "in theory". I will comment though that cave drakes can be reasonably effective if you realize that they're not there to kill the elephants, they're there to trip them up and stall the charge to give smiths and arbalests time to do the killing. You don't need anywhere near 1:1 for this, more like 1:5. Elephants generally don't do so well if you can get them to hold still on the front line for just a couple turns which is where you want to aim for a counter.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Like many things, there may not be a "correct" answer. But taking an awake size 6 pretender as Ulm certainly enhances Ulm's chances to see the middle game. Of that I think there can be no argument.

Likewise, taking a archmage for magical diversity is much better and gives Ulm more options in the middle and endgame. That is not disputed either.

But I maintain that Ulm is perceived as weak, and that perception will cause them to be rushed early. So I still think it is prudent when designing Ulm to keep that fact in mind.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

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?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

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 ?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Blitz games are played on Easy.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

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.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Crushers are size 6, Cave drakes size 4. So they don't stop the elephants. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

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

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I thought they might be, as well.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

With easy research Ulm using the awake great sage has evocation 3 + thaum 2 in turn 6 (bonds of fire, iron darts or magma bolts for the priest smiths, and the great sage can use berserkers to have some guys ignoring the dragon awe).

If Ulm turtle in his capitol and continue researchs up to turn 9 (evocation 3 + alteration 2 + thaum 3) the priest smiths can use earth meld to slow the elephants when the great sage uses spells like rage or panic.

Not to say that it's sufficient to have 100% chances to stop a rush, but I think it's far to be a totally hopeless situation.

Especially if the attack happens a little later (like it's far more probable considering Arco has to find Ulm capital first and won't risk elephants against knights without some alteration researched for body ethearal ; say they start to attack around turn 12-13 and the big battle happen in turn 16) Ulm may have conjuration 3/ alteration 2/ thaumaturgy 3 / evocation 5/ construction 4 (so a great sage with earth boots able to kill some elephants or an unlucky dragon with gifts from heaven ; and smiths with earth power) when Arco (with magic 1) has thaum 5 / alt 4 and a level 2 in another school.

(test made just counting capitol researchers, didn't built castles, just made priest smiths and astrologers, and even the dragon was set to research, some castles build early can make Arco closer in research -if they build the same number-, but I think it's hard to afford several castles + elephants, so Ulm would probably have more forts)

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

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.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Funny thing, I was actually just looking at this based on this thread, and I decided to do it with a rainbow mage. Was going better a couple beers ago. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I have managed to put together some fairly nasty stuff, but I suppose it depends on what your definition of a rush as there's no way Ulm is going to be a threat on turn 6. Turn 12 though it's not difficult to have three castles pumping out arbalests and black plate flail infantry (double attacks) backed by a significant number of smiths casting destruction and earth meld for quite the double whammy of removing both protection and defense (you've got to use earth gems for destruction initially since you've got no earthpower). You also bring whatever indie slingers and archers you can scrape together. Finally, your rainbow pretender wind guides your massed arbalests and follows that up by casting wooden warriors a couple times which stacks...nicely with black plate infantry while wind guided slings/shortbows are plenty nasty enough when falling on the victims of destruction. True this has some obvious counters if you're expecting it and doesn't have the universal application of a classic rush (its just not gonna work against some nations), but there are plenty of nations that would have a lot of trouble dealing with this very unexpectedly aggressive Ulm with research they have available on turn 12.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

With Black halbreds, can you not now rush a nation that is reliant on blesses.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

That's an interesting question, Sir_Dr_D, it's too bad noone's replied to it yet. Also, Magma bolts are Evo 3, and Bonds of Fire is Thau 2, isn't that a little high to be relying on them, under two separate schools, for early rushes?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

It is. Any suggestions for what else to do?

I'll probably post little more on this when I get back home and can try stuff out, but there's little else to do.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Yes, I just recently obliterated dual bless (W/S) Vanhiem with the black halberds in a rush. The best they could do was zapping me with a bunch of lightning bolts, but as the black halberds aren't sacred, I just overwhelmed him with numbers - mixing in flail black plate infantry from my second castle to soak up some damage. It was funny, his infantry actually did better than the vans or Valkyries, but you're not really gonna win slugging it out infantry vs infantry against Ulm....

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Actually, my experience says that it depends. Black halberds are dangerous against small sacred elites, but against lower-tier massable sacreds, they can be less effective- I used Mictlan every effectively against them, and although they did more damage than the average ulmish troop, they fell quickly as well.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

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!

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

That doesn't sound right. I just tested the following couple scenarios with a F/S blessed Mictlan.

40 Black Halberds vs 30 jaguar warriors - Mictlan spent a little more gold to get a priest to bless, not counting the opportunity cost of a double bless. Result - 30 dead jags, 6 dead halberds.

40 Halberds vs 50 jags - Mictlan spent a bunch more gold and managed to outrecruit the non-sacred halberds somehow. Result - 45 dead jags, 21 dead halberds.

As this is MA, considering the more likely matchup of eagle warriors - 50 eagles vs 40 halberds. 5 dead halberds, the eagles broke after 22 deaths.

Thing is, even "cheaper" sacreds are limited by your "holy" recruit points, and given the standard Ulmish prod-3 you're not going to be able to outnumber the black halberds until you've got more than 3 castles, with temples (and labs for mages)...pretty far outside the "rush" range.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I agree, but have to nitpick about MA Mictlan. They shouldn't be putting labs in their first expansion castles, since they just need a temple to recruit the eagles and 60-gold priests. Move the priests back to the capitol to research, and indy commanders can bus the eagles about. Capitol should always only recruit jags.

Also, Sloth-3 pays a lot towards the F/S bless.

On pure random maps though, MA Mictlan doesn't stand a chance of doing this since they need 'real' mountains to build 800-gold, 3-turn forts. All other fort choices are horrible. On a non-random map with mountains, you can have a Hillfort and temple up in turn 7, and still have been recruiting 10 jaguars per month, using something like:

Oracle
Magic: Fire 9 Astral 9
Dominion 10
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 3 Growth 1 Misfortune 2 Magic 1
Imprisoned

Also, Mictlan's force should include a few turkeys from the lab. They are excellent at getting to the front in no time, and are great against low-MR units with their 100-precision Mesmerize ranged weapon, which is penetration+2 according to debug:

hitunit 2124 568 dmg128 spec1216499712 ba1
spec_mr pen 12 mr 10 (unr 2124 vic 568 dmg 11 eff 128)

I think turn 12 you could be looking at 80 jags, some shield chaff, and 20 eagles.

But Mictlan's going to take significant losses and be open to a 3rd party attack, so the Halberds are probably enough of a deterrent.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Well yeah, my test was simplistic, but a decent Ulm player is likewise not going to have just a block of halberds set to be slaughtered. I'd counter that by turn 12 your suggested Mictlan force would be facing easily 80-100 halberds plus another 100+ black plate infantry from secondary castles. If you're bringing turkeys I have to insist that Ulm has several guys using gems to spam blade wind - which is not unreasonable for turn 12 with an awake rainbow pretender (who I think is by far the best way to play Ulm).

Heck, I just ran some tests and even just nothing but black plate pikeneers with no support at all handily won on a gold for gold basis vs F/S jaguars (80 vs 30). Ulm's best counter to single target MR effects like mesmerize is often just to bring enough guys that it doesn't matter. 5 turkeys will hit less than 25 guys (some of them will pass the MR roll), that's not battle winning if you've got 200+ troops.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

For what it is worth, at turn 12 in my mictlan game, I had built my third fort as well- eagle warriors are incredibly cheap, and allow quick expansion and for construction. On a gold for gold basis, eagle warriors do very, very well, especially over several battles- flying means that they get away if they lose, and that enemies don't, meaning that over the course of several battles, they tend to come out on top.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

What scale/path combination do you go for? I've been trying to get Luck for all those gems, but it slows down my early game, especially the second fort - unless I get some gold events, of course. On the other hand, with Luck-generated gems, I don't feel so bad for empowering. I also seem to get lots of Water gems from events, useful for a single empowerment and lots of Staves of Corrosion and Rune Smashers afterwards.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Well, incredibly cheap is a very relative term. 15 gold for an eagle warrior vs 10 gold for a black plate pikeneer. The eagle warriors also have several inherent costs - the fact you have to have a temple to recruit them, an expensive leader to divine bless them (eagle warriors don't do so well if you don't bless them all at once), and an expensive bless coupled with an expensive dominion score to recruit a significant number of them.

Don't get me wrong, eagle warriors can be great if you treat them right, but dirt cheap is Ulm's bread and butter. Black plate infantry is 10 gold. Smiths are 140 gold. No need to build temples unless you need to push your dominion. On a nation playing order/production.....*that* is dirt cheap.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Luck is nice, but what Ulm *needs* to keep it's engine running in the first year is a steady gold flow. Once you've got a couple extra castles up you're generally gonna be doing OK, but it's urgent to get those up to start pumping out your cheap yet resource hungry troops. Order, Production, Drain, and Misfortune (Ulm's PD is pretty good at repelling barbarians) along with a modest dominion score gives you plenty of points to have a nice awake rainbow pretender. Don't worry, once your critical research is done and the pretender starts site searching your gems will start to roll in...

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

By the way, what are the thoughts on using a Virtue with these guys? I'm currently using an asleep Virtue in a game, and he seems pretty good. Air 4, Death 5, Dom 10, 3 Prod, 1 Order, 2 Luck, 1 Growth, 2 Cold, and 3 Drain. So far so good, against the AI.

Not quite relevant to the conversation of Ulm vs Rushers, but I'm just getting used to actually being able to play again (sortof). Would a Virtue be a relevant choice for Ulm in MP?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

It is my opinion that ulm slaughters *any* blessed units on anywhere near an equal basis. And that includes ashdod, niefle, mictlan and lanka. Quite a nice balance.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Yeah, MA Ulm, once it gets rolling, seems quite powerful. All those individual units have good synergy with each other, and they can build up some serious experience. 3 stars on an arbelaster is more precision than you'd get with sacred Kailasan archers, and in a cheap, armour-piercing unit, with great armour.

Ofcourse, it takes a lot of time to get to 3 stars, but, used wisely, they have potential to last long enough to get there.

And, MA Ulm's units aren't hard to use. It's relatively straightforward to create a line of shield+morningstar infantry out front, calvalry to the side, arbelasters in back of the infantry. You can play around with the other units, adding in pike, flailers, battle-axers, etc. but the basics are almost built in.

Another cog in their engine is that you can instantly use their mage-smiths in combat. You'll want them researching, ofcourse, but when you're first establishing your empire, having 3-4 mage-smiths casting rain of stones or fire flies in the back does a lot against independents. And they're one of the few units Ulm has, that don't take a monstrous amount of resources to build.

That said, their sappers-armed with lighter crossbows-are actually a pretty good support unit. You can build them quickly, for sheer missle superiority, and use them later on in the game to break castles.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I hope you meant Stone Shards. If you didn't, could you PM me the details? :p

EDIT: I like using magic bows and Sceptres of Authority on my support commanders, very early if I get the chance. In fact, as I tend to research Construction 1 for Legions of Steel first, if I get a Fire gem event early I go for Constr 2 instead of Evocation. 5 fatigue Flame Bolts for 3 gems is hard to beat in the early game (from Sceptre of authority). Now if only Fire Bolas were an effective counter to elephants...

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Stone shards is what I meant, rain of stones just sounds better (and I didn't have my manual handy) :p

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

This is all correct, though i'd play with the bless some.

This is not. ulm can't move. the jag armies will run around and join together to take out the reinforcements and the breadbaskets, and be back in time to relieve any attempted siege by the un-reinforced original Ulm force.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Rain of stones is actually a really powerful move for Ulm. You should end up with a couple smiths who get an air random, and with your forge bonus you can cheaply slap black steel plate on your combat mages (2 earth gems apiece with a hammer). Have your mages cast stone/iron skin round one and they (along with all your black plate troops) will be functionally immune to the rain of stones. Anybody tough enough to shrug off the stones now gets the joy of charging into magma eruptions. Anybody too tough for *that* will probably face destruction. Hmmm, come to think of it, a sadistic person might wait until after a couple turns of destruction to land the stones. >:)

Or, just empower your air random smith cheaply with 30 gems, stick some black steel full plate on him and a pair of earth boots, cloud trapeze into the path of an attacking army to drop a first round rain of stones which your PD will mostly ignore (not so much the enemy mages). Retreat, rinse, and repeat. Probably worthwhile to invest a few extra items on that guy, but you don't need anything expensive.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

You're a very evil man, and I appreciate that. After I finish my current Lanka game, I'm thinking I should play as MA Ulm. Ulm was my first choice back in the Dom:PPP days, and it's about time to revisit those glory days. :D

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I think just having a small corps of mages set to casting Destruction, specifically, wouldn't be a bad idea, once you've got Rain of Stones going on.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I should point out, rush strategies tend not to win games anyway outside of small maps. Remember, against good players, you don't have to have the best army. You just have to have a better one than his other neighbors.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

To what extent could Ulm divert elephants with a load of small combat groups (say, 6 groups of 5 each) by creating a sort of "chain" of target nearest that keeps them from large troop formations for as long as possible, allowing mages and missiles to whittle them down?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Elephants vs Ulm are a bit of an overblown threat IMO, particularly since Ulm's face lift. Magma bolts decimate the shieldless pachyderms when spammed in sufficient numbers, and I haven't tested it out but it seems like iron darts/blizzard would work reasonably as well.

As far as beating elephants without using mages - no there's not really any clever placement you can do, the best you can really manage is trying to mass enough sappers/arbalests to get critical mass to bring them down before they start splattering your troops. This actually works pretty well due to your archer's range if you can get a sufficient number and your opponent is holding his elephants back waiting for your mages to tire out. 2-4 volleys of bolts does a lot when you fire enough of them at things without shields. If your opponent is instead charging straight forward with a big block of elephants, try half a dozen smiths spamming magma bolts into their face - you won't be disappointed. Moral of the story is Ulm's combat mages are their backbone, you'll struggle mightily against lots of stuff without them.

The thing about elephants is they really need critical mass plus they're expensive. If your opponent masses a bunch of them together and pushes straight for your capital, meet it with all those research mages you've got there. If he splits it into a couple largish groups, spread out your mages into hit squads and take the aggressors out one group at a time. If he splits into smaller squads, just boost your PD strategically - it has the right weapons to do some damage if there are less than 5 elephants per group. If you're to the point that you've got several largish squads of elephants...well you should really have magma eruption and blade wind by that point as well as several castles cranking out smiths, so I don't see that as too much of a problem.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Yeah, I just ran 2 tests out of curiosity.

Test 1: 20 elephants + 20 Hypaspists (~2400 gold) vs 100 arbalests + 20 PD(~1200 gold). Elephants all the way back (behind hypaspists) set to hold then attack, arbalests set to fire large enemy monsters. Elephants break with heavy losses, Ulm takes no non-PD losses.

Test 2: 30 elephants (3000 gold) set to charge straight forward vs 100 arbalests, 20 PD and 6 priest smith's set to spam iron darts from the back row (~2400 gold). Elephants break with heavy losses, Ulm takes no non-PD losses.

I shudder to think about slapping a wind guide on top of that with your pretender, as you were researching alt-4 for destruction anyway.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I just have to comment - Iron Darts is really a sick, sick spell. I've taken some hideous losses against comparatively weak forces (should have walked over them), with 5-6 smiths spamming Darts - and they do cut through Elephants like Ginsu cuts tomatoes - fast and juicy. :eek:

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

So no word on the Virtue?