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Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Ok...I must begin this by stating I am a complete newbie to the whole Dom1/Dom 2 world but I love it all very much.
Now...Ulm is bad ***. I love them...their units are rock solid albeit a bit pricey and except for the lack of decent spell power, I am very happy with them. I'm still getting my feet wet and am playing on easy so don't flame me too hard but these are a few of the things I've been doing that haev enabled success...please tell me how these are great strats or insanely crappy ones when I go against a good friend this friday on Aran. First, I take a sage Pretender, give him 1 Fire, 2's across the board, except for 3 or 4 Astral, 1 Earth, and 3 or 4 in Nature and Wind. I then build 3 or 4 black plate axemen and have him research...now...this lets me have a small hard force that search territory very effectively. Every turn I'm pumping out a master smith until I have 8 and a few priests in my capital. All of the gems I am now getting will be used to empower a stay at home smith into a Magic Item producing factory. I then outfit BlackLords and other baddies with the best that I can...which is typically very good. As I'm going through and gaining territory, I raise the defences as much as possible...to at least 31 in most cases, I've gone as high as 92 in one game. How do I fund this? With the excess of Gems that I am producing. I grow much slower than my computer rivals but rarely lose territory and they always get a helluva bloody nose waltzing around my lands. The only guys who consistently put the smack down on me ar the damm squid heads. I hate them and am planning a nationwide fishfry in their honor one day soon! Anyway, I know I can do better but Ulm is rock solid thus far...I mean I fought Ermor with some thing like 3 Priests, My Pretender, 4 Master Smiths, a Black Lord, 16 Black Knights and 30 Black Plate Axemen, he had his Wight Lord and 12 other commander, 32 regular units and 662 Undead. At the end of the battle-(I lost by the way)-I lost my Black Lord and roughly half my knights and foot troops, he lost none of his commanders, 16 of the 32 regular units and 447 Undead...those are damm fine numbers. You guys should have seen the ridiculousness of 3 or 4 Blade Winds every turn...it was a thin black line holding back this monstrous horde...truly the stuff of legends. That battle sold me on Ulm...they might need a little tweaking here and there and I would love Iron Faith to actually be worth something but for now...I plan on riding them out...tell me yuo don't trembl when the comp or a buddy shows up on your doorstep with a solid block of 30 Black Plate Infantry with two gGroups of 20 Black Knights on each Flank...there will be death that day!!! I look forward to the responses. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Everything I am about to state is opinion only. Everyone plays differently. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
>and except for the lack of decent spell power That's the main problem with Ulm. >First, I take a sage Pretender I'm not a fan of mage pretenders. As a new Ulm player try a Great Mother. Start her with at least 3 in earth. At game start have her behind the main troops and have her cast Legions of Steel. It starts pre-researched. This will help early expansion a lot. Later have the Smiths make the GM a set of magic equipment. She gets pretty fierce when equiped well. For serious abuse try her with air-3 earth-3+. Give her a cloak of shadows, pendent of luck, charcoal shield, main gauch of parrying, boots of the messenger, horror helmet, and amulet of resilience. On entering combat have her cast Invulnerability, Mist Form, and Elemental Fortitude. She can still be killed, but it isn't easy. >I raise the defences as much as possible...to at least 31 in most cases, I've gone as high as 92 in one game. Ulm has very good province defense (arguably the best), but don't blow all your expansion gold on it or human players will outpace you handily. >You guys should have seen the ridiculousness of 3 or 4 Blade Winds every turn Research conjuration-3 for Summon Earth Power. Then all your Smiths can cast Blade Wind. (and legions of steel, strength of giants, and magma eruption) For a simple and effective earth summons try the Clockwork Horrors (construction-5). Also try adding in a bunch of archers from an indy province. They can barely scratch your armored troops, but can really help versus light troops... such as Ermonian undead. [ November 20, 2003, 16:26: Message edited by: apoger ] |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Ugg...Earth Mother? I know most of this game takes place in our brains...heh heh heh...my imagination can outshine the latest graphics cards...but jeez...just something not in character about Ulm being led by a fat green chick...what about a cyclpos instead...that one eye thing bothers me though....how easy is it to get blinded ?
Clockwork? I love those guys...the description is funny too...I was just spanked by R'Lyeh?-(sp?) again but nearthe end i started using masses of clockwork and they tore through them pretty good.... Earth Power is cool...I tried doing the specific spell thing but it didn't cast what I wanted...is there something I did wrong? My spells all showed up in the parantheses and everything. As for spell power...it is slow and arduous but empowerment seems to be working good for me so far. The crazy T'ienChi monkeys and the squid faces are still troublesome to me. T'ien Chi kept whacking me with fatige inducing spells...is there a counter for that ? My buddy plays Abyssia...I ave absolutely destroyed the comp Abyssia time and time again. He's a bit smart than that though...Any item combos that I give heroes or Black Lords that will let them stand a chance against his Demon Lords? As a rule I go hard for Construction 6 and Evo 6..then split the rest of my points between the rest... Thank you for the detailed response by the way...these Boards are by far the best I've been on. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I kinda afree with you on that...
I haven't realy used Cyclops, so i can't tell how easily they lose their eyes. Maybe the mage found a better spell to cast? Kill the mages who cast those spells. In a nutshell:No A long answer:Forbidden Ligth could help, but the Horror will eat you before you see the Demon Lords. Just summon big critters like Iron Dragons. [ November 20, 2003, 18:22: Message edited by: Nerfix ] |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Demon Lords are pretty buff, and make decent battle mages, but they can't wear armor and are just as vulnerable to Curse (Increases affliction chance, no MR check, requires Astral/Nature) / Vision's Foe (Takes out an eye, no MR check; requires Death/Air) / Bow of Botulf (Feeblemind, no MR check; requires death magic) as anybody else. Curse is a nice counter for supers in that it greatly increases the chance of getting an affliction when wounded, and it doesn't matter that much how powerful you are if you're blind and feebleminded.
They'll still be KO'd by Magebane, but that's an artifact... |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I quite enjoy playing Ulm, too. My most successful games of Doms I and Doms II vs. the AI are using Ulm. Though, it fits my play style, and I have the most experience with it. However it's pretty clear that magic isn't their strong suit, and magic can get megapowerful in the late game. Convince your opponent to use slow research speed setting for the game, and you'll be in a much better position. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Some specific ideas: * I only recruited two Master Smiths in my Doms I game, because they could make plenty of equipment at the rate with which I hired new commanders to use it (and the rate at which I got new earth gems for them to use). I did empower one of them and got him some Earth Boots, though. I also found a great library so I had sages for the other magic disciplines. Having a mage pretender with plenty of magic can go a long way to make up for lack of mages, for some purposes anyway. I chose a dragon, myself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif * On the other hand, it sounds like Earth Power plus blade winds can turn a bunch of Iron Smiths into a blade hurricane, so that might be worthwhile. It might be a way to deal with some of those squids and anti-mages, though it sounds expensive to me. I'd probably use mercenaries, summons, and cannon-fodder light infantry like tribals against them, sparing my Ulmish troops, since their strengths wouldn't help much against them. * My Doms II Ulm game is with Iron Faith, and they seem about as good as regular Ulm. You mainly want to use the Black Templars to take advantage of it, I think. Start the pretender with magic that gives some nice bless bonuses, and then have blessed Templars as an evil flanking/mop up force in cooperation with your Ulmish infantry and some cannon fodder, and you have a very nice early-game army. Templars end up being much cheaper than Black Knights because they are holy units so they cost half to maintain - same deal for the Black Priests, and the Black Priests give you random magic skills too, so you can get some diversity unavailable in the main Ulm theme. * Guardians are very butch. Lord Guardian commanders have the best basic skills of the Ulmish infantry commanders. * Try to use more mercenaries and cannon fodder against things that can overcome your armor, such as Jotuns, squids, poison gas, miasma, etc. * Get Dwarven hammers and use them for practically all forging except when you really need more items immediately. * Forge of the Ancients can get you masses of cheap and powerful items. If you cast it, be sure to invest in items which increase magic power when held, before someone dispells it. PvK |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
>what about a cyclpos instead...that one eye thing bothers me though....how easy is it to get blinded ?
Too easy. I never use the Cyclops. I was put off by the Great Mothers appearance as well. However I got over it since she kicks so much butt. If you want something that looks cool and is still effective (and Human themed), try the Titan. Have him take 6-9 air magic. In combat have him cast Mist Form and Mirror Image. Combined with magic items this wil make him pretty tough. Once you do some evocation he can abuse Orb Lightning. Later on, he can slam armies with Cloud Trapeze/Storms/Wrathful Skies. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I was attracted to them in the beginning but I don't find them very good now in the end game. They are too limited in the end game, as are the Niefel theme Jotunheim.
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Try imagining yourself as a Void Lurker.
Deep Sea Fungus while being yummily hallucinagenic doesn't portray a fearsome god. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
...or a Void Lord?
Oh wait, i can do that... I have been wondering one thing about Iron Faith... Where are the Black Paladins? The Iron Inquistion needs its Black Paladins! |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Fat green chick indeed . . . what a way to talk about the Venus of Villendorf! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Ulm is a favorite of mine too. A good combo, IMO, is a Fire-9 Dragon pretender. Those flaming weapons are especially painful when backed by good, honest, Ulmish muscle! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif Astral-9 works well too. Ulm's troops are hard enough to injure without having Twist of Fate protecting them as well! |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I'm a total newb, but I thought only sacred troops received bonuses from priestly blessings. Or is that wrong?
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Nope, you're correct. Try playing with the sacred Black Templars from the Iron Faith theme and giving them a good blessing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Ugg...Earth Mother? I know most of this game takes place in our brains...heh heh heh...my imagination can outshine the latest graphics cards...but jeez...just something not in character about Ulm being led by a fat green chick...what about a cyclpos instead...that one eye thing bothers me though....how easy is it to get blinded ?
Clockwork? I love those guys...the description is funny too...I was just spanked by R'Lyeh?-(sp?) again but nearthe end i started using masses of clockwork and they tore through them pretty good.... Earth Power is cool...I tried doing the specific spell thing but it didn't cast what I wanted...is there something I did wrong? My spells all showed up in the parantheses and everything. As for spell power...it is slow and arduous but empowerment seems to be working good for me so far. The crazy T'ienChi monkeys and the squid faces are still troublesome to me. T'ien Chi kept whacking me with fatige inducing spells...is there a counter for that ? My buddy plays Abyssia...I ave absolutely destroyed the comp Abyssia time and time again. He's a bit smart than that though...Any item combos that I give heroes or Black Lords that will let them stand a chance against his Demon Lords? As a rule I go hard for Construction 6 and Evo 6..then split the rest of my points between the rest... Thank you for the detailed response by the way...these Boards are by far the best I've been on. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Cool responses...let's see if I can get to them...
< A good combo, IMO, is a Fire-9 Dragon pretender. Those flaming weapons are especially painful when backed by good, honest, Ulmish muscle! Honest Ulmish muscle...yep...that' what drew me to them in the first place...wizards...bah! Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for good bLaster kid. Whoops wrong time period, butyou get the point... <I know its stupid but Im an old RPGer. I have more than just a problem of picturing the battle. I tend to feel that the pretender is ME. Actually the fat green chick didnt cause me as much problem as the cute sexy ones. Im just an old fat white guy who cant picture himself as something like Daughter of the River. I guess I just dont have that much imagination. Heh heh....I think of myself as the Pretender also...nope, definitely can't be the fat chick now. < I was attracted to them in the beginning but I don't find them very good now in the end game. They are too limited in the end game, as are the Niefel theme Jotunheim. I don't know....by the end game you should have a bunch of souped up Master Smiths and your Pretender plus any special mage types from territories, the more I write the more excited I get about Ulm...I'd like to see them have MR that actually amkes a difference, or be allowed to freely shift defense points around to different provinces to reflect their disciplined society structure. Iron Faith needs some work to make it doable but Vanilla Ulm is here to stay! <Damn, how rich you are! 31 defenses costs 496 gold, and 92 costs... 4278 gold!!! Do you realize you could have bought a few castles and zounds of troops for the same price? True but if you don't have the resources to spend all that cash, it neds to go somewhere and I've had huge success using defense against Eremor which was the bad guy giving me problems when I had 92 pts... <On the other hand, it sounds like Earth Power plus blade winds can turn a bunch of Iron Smiths into a blade hurricane, so that might be worthwhile. It might be a way to deal with some of those squids and anti-mages, though it sounds expensive to me. I'd probably use mercenaries, summons, and cannon-fodder light infantry like tribals against them, sparing my Ulmish troops, since their strengths wouldn't help much against them. I played Last night for about 4 hours experimenting with this and I'll tell you what...Smiths wearing Earth Power boots and possessing the Aiming Eye are soem Blade Wind unleashing fools. I had 4 running around with about 15 Knights...they absolutely tore through huge amounts of undead...I had 2 Priests also and the Banishment was nice...but accurate Blade Wind is a nasty thing to deal with, let alone 3 or 4 every round. Also, I got intoa bit of a pickle at one point and retreated all 4 and my Pretender to a castle/lab and had all 5 do Colckwork Horrow....Mu HU Ha Ha Ha...instant army, just add lab....was beautiful. Are the difficulty levels just for AI decision making or does it actually affect things like resources, magic points, etc ? |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Only if i knew what a Hochmeister is...
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Can those constructs go underwater? If they can, cheers to mindless beings attacking mind flayers underwater. ;P
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Someone else may already have posted this, but one of my ulm strategies is to use spies.
Raise unrest in the AI's home province to over 100. Now...deal with what army he has fielded. He can't make more of his decent troops. At most you'll be fighting independent province recruits. That is soooo wonderful imo. Need to get some water breating rings for some races, though. Still, I find that this strategy rocks. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
How do you combat spies or stealth preachers?
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Patrols. But it costs you population. And ulm spies I think are kind of hard to catch.
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
No, only up to the "unrest" number. It looks to me like Defense (or maybe just a higher random chance per province?) also gives patrols that can catch sneakers in Doms II. At least, I see many more scouts being caught in provinces without patrols (both AI and my own), than I did in Doms I.
BTW, my dragon pretender has devoured a few earth mother pretenders, without using special equipment. "They're talon-lickin' good" (tm). They were AI mothers though so they didn't have wicked equipment, and I think they may have had afflictions from sitting on my armies before the dragon arrived. PvK |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I routinely send ulm spies into 25 defense provinces and very, very rarely am discovered. Try sending 4 in at once. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif They only cost 30 gp each.
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Also, if my spy is instilling an uprising, there will be some unrest.
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I like it! I like it all! Forward my minions of Ulm. We shall show these upstart Pretenders who the one true faith is. Mu Hu Ha Ha Ha......
Seriously, you guys have all shown that there are strats that Ulm can take advatange of to equal out their supposed "3rd rate status"...I will have some sort of meager battle report up after my game tonight against Abyssia led by Dryton. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
"Auto-patrolling" starts with a Defence of 10. It isn't very good compared to a real army patrolling around, especially when that army is made out of speedy and/or numerous troops.
I've caught a few scouts with the auto-patrol, but not many. Still, it ain't bad for free. Oh, and (just as PvK points out) patrolling of any kind doesn't kill anybody as long as there is no unrest, and then only up to the unrest number. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I have a problem with iron faith. I tried in the demo to research with these iron faith priests in a drain 3 dominion. Most ulm folks take drain 3.
To my surprise, they weren't able to do but 1 research point a day. That obviously won't work. Does anyone else think they need the smiths' ability to have research unaffected by drain dominion? Or is ulm supposed to change to a magic or neutral dominion to get research even when their mages are still weak and their priests are pretty much just average? |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I don't think Ulm's too powerful, but it is still fun. The real problem with ulm is it relies on armor...armor piercing or negating things just devastate Ulmish armies like nothing else, and Ulm is lacking in magic variety, with only one level 3 mage.
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Regarding Iron Faith, I don't think it lets you pick a non-Drain dominion. Lousy research is the one huge downside of choosing Iron Faith; you must find a library for the sages if you want to be remotely competitive in research.
Regarding the weaknesses regarding the reliance on armor, fear the magic -- especially air magic, as /all/ lightning attacks are armor-negating, and orb lightning isn't that hard to research and scales with the mage's air power. A Pythium Arch Theurg with a Communicant swarm can toss out lightning like nobody's business, for instance. |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Yes, Iron Faith requires Drain of at least 1, which subtracts from the research speed of Black Priests (unless you have them research someplace outside your dominion).
Although this is a disadvantage, it's untrue that this makes it impossible for Ulm to keep up with research. Ulm is great at forging cheaply, and there are several items which give research bonuses, and which stack together. Quills, skulls, black lanterns are worth 3-9 research points each, can be stacked two per researcher, and cost zero gold and zero to maintain. Forged by a Black Priest using a Dwarven Hammer, they don't cost many gems, either. PvK |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
I too am a fan of Ulm. I usually play the with more dominion, less magic to fight against the influence of Ermor. The Last game I played was with the Serpent. Dom 10, +3 Life, +3 Productivity, +3 Order, -3 magic. No magic. After I empowered some Smiths, I mananged to cast Riches from Beneath and Nature's bounty. 10k+ gold per round and two castles got 550+ resources. I'ld probably get crushed by magic against a human, but it was fun to see 500 black plate troops in the field again Man's Last stand.
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
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processing... German Word detected Hoch equals high Meister equals Master All hail to the highmaster By the way, I havent got the game yet, so I have no Idea whether or not there is a highmaster in the game |
Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
Very strange. In my experience sending a spy into the enemy's home base is a surefire way to lose him. A mere 25 provincial defense has demonstrated itself time and again to me as a near-universal roadblock to spies.
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Re: Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!
That does often happen for one spy...
Try sending in about 4 or 5 at once, though. They are cheap enough that this isn't really cost-prohibitive. Tell me what happens then. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I think unrest helps to hide your spies...but that's just my supposition. And spies are better hidden than scouts with their stealth +20. |
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