Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

Yeah, one thing I didn't mention but probably should, your initial mages you're recruiting should be master smiths, not holy smiths. The upkeep on the holy smiths is lower, and there's a few extra spells they can cast (iron blizzard, etc), but you really want to get those 10% randoms fairly early. Once you've got 3+ castles cranking out smiths and you've got a couple of the randoms you need you can switch to making holy smiths from your capital every turn so you'll have them when you want them for thugs or those spells.

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

Excellent guide, However I disagree on the scales a little. order/death is good for smaller map, but in a bigger game I'd go with luck to compensate money loss by death and to get those extra gems from the start.
But than again I just like luck.

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

I somewhat disagree. I've been experimenting with EA Ulm lately and found out that strong bless and thug holy smiths is a workable combination*. But going for this requires that the holy smiths (shamans) be recruited earlier than the smiths.
Also it is more efficient to start recruiting smiths en mass once you've hit high const. and have significant gem income. This way you'd be recruiting them when they're guaranteed to do what they are good at - forging.

* Actually, I didn't find a lot working for EA Ulm so it was kinda nice surprise to learn that bless and shaman thugs is workable.

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

I'm going to side with Baalz here. The randoms generated from the regular smiths are way more game changing then a few extra thugs and dollars.

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

I like luck too. But remember, you've got drain and I'm pretty sure that cuts deeply into those extra gem events.

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

This has not been my experience. I'm not saying there is no difference, but I found plenty of gem generators with drain scales, but a lot less with misfortune scales.

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

Even with Drain, Luck does give gems. It might lower the amount of gems you get slightly, and/or make good events more rare, and I'm pretty sure item events are much more rare. But yes, it does give gems, and when few gems are all you need for an item, it can be nice.

As I said before, I'd still take Order 3 for MA Ulm and Luck only if I already had the important stuff like good magic for the pretender, maxed Order/Production, perhaps a pick of Growth to keep the Smiths from getting diseased etc.

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

A somewhat related topic: I just met some problems using Magma eruption.

I had an army of round 60 regular units(hold and attack), leaded by serveal master smiths.
All smiths were scripted with Summon Earth Power - 4x magma eruption. But when they met a single SC (mistform - mirror image - attack close using winged shoes) on the battlefield, all of them refused to use that spell. They even perfered a melee attack with the enemy, which made that battle simply a total slaughter.

What's wrong with them? The SC has 50% fire resistant and 20 protection. Should that be the reason for my smiths to change their mind? Any comments will be sincerely appreciated.

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

Hmmm, shouldn't be. Generally when the AI refuses to cast a spell you scripted it's because it can't find a valid target. Fire resistance shouldn't help against it, and a 20 protection is not going to stop it all. I've had SCs go down to maga eruption spam before, not sure why they're mutinying for you, is the guy out of range at first and then engaging the smiths in melee?

Re: MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?
 

Not that case. I made some of my units guard my mages, and she (mother of thuatha) just flied into the front ranks and killed the men one after another while most of my mages were standing idle. The same situation happened in 2 separated battles. If I remember it correctly, in one battle she had even zero FR as she was wielding a frost brand instead of the fire one.

I assume the ai thought our side had decesive advantage and casting such a spell into our own ranks was a waste.

Attached is the save file of the second battle. Hmmm... should have made a backup for the first battle too.