Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

I can think of few counters to this but hate it or love it, one is quite broad - any nation with significant access to Fire magic and Fire-resistant or immune troops will smash into any unsupported vampire colony like a hot knife through butter, provided that it is not yet into the late game.

I also like to flavor my fire with death so it would probably have the effect of blunting the edge of your knife as even the immortal, regenerating vampires accrue heavy afflictions after one or two fights against a fire mage with a shroud and death bless casting BEs.

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

I agree entirely. Fortunately, LA Ulm has great national troops and mages (Iron Blizzard+Stealthy Communions), so expanding outside of your dominion is relatively easy.

I think I'd rather refer to it as trench warfare. The goal for Black Forest with a focus on vampires is bite and hold. If you can capture provinces outside your dominion, you can use your swarms of inquisitors (that should be accompanying every army for Iron Blizzard) to get your dominion into the positive side; and in which case, your vampires can hold it against anything. The immortality makes vampires impossible to overwhelm on the defensive (especially with all the vampire thralls and counts and lords LA Ulm can gather), because kamikazees are easy and cost nothing (due to immortality). The problem is, without stealthy preachers or blood sacrifice, it becomes a hassle trying to dominion push, which limits their offense. Still, you can spread it with juggernauts, temples, prophets, and your God (and lower theirs with items), so it's still viable.

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

Tolkien is spot on! Bite and hold is the melody of LA Ulm, and you have everything you need to do it:

*Strong castles with production bonus

*Strong and sturdy, gold cheap infantry (meaning less upkeep allowing garrisons) with castle defence bonus.

*Inquisitors

*Vampires

*Freespawns patrollers, keeping enemy spies out and your own people in check whilst you bloodhunt or tax them hard.

*Stealthy astral infiltrators for that unsuspected surgical strike when the enemy is tied up with the above.

*Stealthy rangers and villains to harass the enemy borders or retake land behind his advancing army.

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

Yeah, that's why I was saying they are like Iraq - a total frikken quagmire.

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

LA Ulm reminds me more of Transilvania actually.

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

Claws of _____ hurts this strategy badly, as immortality doesn't seem to protect against imprisonment, and claws of _____ tends to target higher-HP units (such as the vampire lords)

I'm also curious to see how well this does against other strategies that specialize in attrition- such as massive, cheap buffed swarms (undead are especially nice against vampires as far as combat goes...)

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

Very fine material. Thank you Baalz for another great guide.

Your guides are far more than a dried up articles about how to this or that. They actually capture the imagination and make you want to try the shiny new toys you describe :D

Couple of comments:
1. I 2nd Micah's comment regarding undead mastery and wanted to add that there are a bunch of spells that will mess badly with your strat.i.e. DtD/wither bones spam, solar brilliance, master enslave, Purgatory. Worst are the enslave spells that will just steal your vamps.

2. Storm will kill the vamps flight. No more swarming the buffing SCs. An example: Imagine 3-4 colonies getting cloud trappezed by a mage squad. One carries the SoS, first turn the vamps start crawling towards them and the lords cast their B/D spells. Then the mages go and cast undead mastery/master enslaveX(# of mages -1), last mage casts VoR. Voila, I just stole (some/most of) your precious vamp :)

Personally when I see an opponent in MP that has tons of Vamps running around I start to think hey, here's someone who won't stray away from his dominion and then I start making builds for undead mastery.

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

Won't it be difficult to CT onto the vamps since they're stealthy? I know it can be done, but it seems like its less likely to work as well as you imply.

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

Depends on the situation.

Pick one of the following: they are on the attack and laying siege to your castle, you are laying a trap or storming a castle defended by vamps. Point is if you can see them coming they are done for. Not saying its easy, but the fact that you have to be constantly fearing some judgment day weapon seriously limits your options.

Look at this that way: they will not usually be deployed outside of friendly dominion. That's already a serious disadvantage. Not much point in stealth if you can't use it to raid enemy provinces.
Granted, they are good on the defense but that won't win you games.

Personally, I'd go for the lords and use them for blood hunting mainly and defense when needed.

Re: Vampires - you should be afraid of the night
 

Well, you can be constantly fearing some "judgement day weapon" with just about anything. You might be more concious of it since its harder for your vamps to actually "die", but thats not something unique to them.