Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Hi everyone, new Dom 2 player here.

I've played a few games as Ulm, and I'm not sure I'm playing right. I have some questions about what other players like to do and accomplish as the Ulm nation. I basically, at the moment, play a multiplayer game with one other person exclusively, along with single player.


1 What are my best troops, strengths, weaknesses?

2 What sort of pretender is Ulm successful with? Any specific examples, or general hints?

3 Are there any strategies, magic research, or item forging levels I should be looking to reach quickly?

4 What sort of armies should I build? (unit combinations)

5 What sort of armies/nations should I be afraid of? What sort of "" will I stack up well against?

Thank you so very much in advance, I don't often post but I've found the Dom 2 community is a really helpful one. The game is so complex that I'm finding it hard to get on my feet, even to the point where I'm having difficulty developing my own strategies.

Kdawg

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

1) Black Knights are your best troops, but they're a little pricy. After that, I'd go with the black plate morningstar guys. 10 gold for a 23 protection unit is nice. Guardians are pretty good, too.

Your major strength is early game dominance. Crush your nearest opponent or two, and use peace as a temporary cease-fire in which you build up units for the next charge. Time is -not- on your side. That is your major weakness, you suck in the lategame.

Another strength is item forging. Mass produce armor for your SC's. Mass produce Lightless Lanterns as soon as possible. Mass produce Flambeaus and Rod of the Phoenixes so you don't completely suck *** in the lategame.

2) I always take a rainbow pretender, someone with astral such as a Great Enchantress. I usually don't take an SC god because Ulm just doesn't need extra muscle. They need someone to expand their pathetic magic abilities.

3) Things I go for: #1 BLADE WIND. Get conjuration-3 ASAP for Summon Earthpower. Then get evocation-4 ASAP. Nothing else matters in the early game except getting your hands on blade wind. Get the ablility to build artifacts after that.
Do not stop on construction until level 8. Maybe you can get level 1-2 in some other things before you actually get to level 8 I guess. Your call. Oh, and build all the freaking artifacts you can, starting with The Hammer of the Forge Lord.

4) Early game: black plates backed by at least 1 blade wind caster. I'm partial to arbelests and plain archers as well. Mid game: Scores of black knights backed by several blade wind casters. Late game: SC's, lots of them with Flambeaus backed by many blade wind casters and many basic Ulm commanders with Rods of the Phoenix.

5) Fear NO ONE in the early game. I think Arcosephale is your hardest opponent, because of the mind attacks and trampling elephants. I suppose Ryleh and Caelum would be difficult as well.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Welcome to the addiction, and to the forum!

You chose quite good nation to start playing Dominions with. It has simple mages, no random magic means you have very limited ways to use magic, you have strong units you can rely on (against AI) and you ask good questions.

Your greatest strength is your units' high protection.

Things that counter it include: units with high strength (beware Jotunheim!) and high-damage weapons (T'ien Ch'i provincial defence has dmg 10 Glaives!, and all crossbows are dangerous too) as well as spells with high damage (Bane Fire, Evoc. 6). ALL lightning (Evoc. in Air) spells totally NEGATE armor. Fire and Water have some armor-negating spells (atleast Frozen Heart (Alteration 6) and Incineration (Alt. 4), and some armor-negating spells (Evoc.)

Your best unit is the Black Knight. He is strong, moves two times as fast as your other units and has awesome protection but lower encumberance.

Sappers can quickly wear down destroy enemy fortresses, and they also have strategic move of two. Sappers and Black Knights are only non-commanders of Ulm who have Strat. move of 2.

Guardians are also good units: they have higher morale than generic Ulmish soldiers. They also have high-damage halberds. They require high resources and can only be built in your home citadel, so you might want to wait until you have another castle before recruiting Guardians en masse. Remember that they have very low defence, and before or later someone hits hard enough to kill them. They are very good at defending fortresses, and that is a nice little bonus.

Most of your units have high encumberance, meaning that they quickly get fatique. High fatique lets enemies to strike through your armor, and this means that in long battles Ulmish troops become very vulnerable.

All of your high-defence infatry is useful, but because the shielded ones are better in your specialty, choose them over the others if younhave the resources. Others have their uses against high-prot. units, weak low-prot. units (flail has two attacks) etc.

Your units' magic resistance is bad, so beware Astral spells. Enslave Mind and, http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif, Master Enslave are good examples, but also some Evocations like Astral Fires (Evoc. 6) and Nether Darts (Evoc. 7). There are also other spells that only Magic Resistance protects against, like Shadow BLast (Evoc. 5).

You have only limited access to magic paths. Some Earth (up to 3 with Earth Boots) and little Fire without pretender, empowerment or boosters not forgeable by Smiths without empowering/forge of the ancients.


Also, your Master Smiths have two unique abilities: they are not affected by Drain scale. This means that you can get 120 free design points by taking Drain 3. Only thing you lose is 3 research points from your pretender, because *he* is not immune to drain. The second ability, Forge Bonus, is also very good. One fourth of items' cost is taken away whenever they are making it... And this stacks! Get them Dwarven Hammer, and the bonus is 50%, Hammer of the Forge Lords (unique) or Hammer of the Cyclops (unique, non-forgeable), and it is 75%! Forge of the Ancients lowers this even more, but it does not stack to allow 100% bonus. Forge also gives your mages one virtual level in ALL magic paths, so your E2F1 Smiths can forge ANY item that needs F2, E3, N1, S1, A1... or any of their combinations!

To take most of your Smiths' Forge Bonus, empower them. To do this you have to have lots of gems. The easiest way to get them is to have a pretender who can find them: a Rainbow Mage. Take 2 to 3 levels in all/most paths. Consider leaving Blood and Earth away, but be sure you can do some Fire boosters (Flaming Helmet at Constr. 4 is Fire 3, Skull of Fire at Constr. 6 is Fire 1+Death 1, Staves of elemental mastery are either F3+W3 or E3+A3), F2 and atleast D1 are probably the best. Remember that Death and Nature have spells for summoning mages with random picks (Summon Spectre and Contact Lamia Queen at Conjur. 6). Also check other boosters and be sure you can do as many of them as possible. The is an excel file listing all boosters somewhere, try SunrayBe's and Arryn's site.

You could also try taking a cheap pretender and getting as good scales as you can. Oracle or maybe Monolith, or maybe a moving mage so that you can look for some sites.

You could also go for high Earth mage. This would let you to use Legionst of Steel (the spell Ulm starts with) right from the start, and to cast The Forge of the Ancients. You might consider researching it right away. This would also give you easy access to other nice Earth globals like Earth Blood Deep Well, Riches from Beneath and Mechanical Militia. Depending on what you go for, level 4-6 is enough. Because you have no blessed troops, it's not worth going for highest levels.

You start with Legions of Steel that gives your units even more protection. Your Smiths cannot cast it without gems, because they have only Earth 2. At Conjuration 3 there is Earth Power, that gives reinvigoration (fatique goes away) and one more level in Earth, Lasting to the end of that battle. You also get Phoenix Power (similar spell for Fire), and with some fire gems you Smiths can first cast PP and then, with another gem, F3 spells like Incineration or Falling Fires. You can also summon lesser Earth Elementals. They are very slow and use gems, so they are rarely useful. Cave Drakes have high protection, but they are slow and have weak attack, and are expensive. They can offer you tough meat shield, either to protect your own units or when you quickly have to get *something*.

Evocation has many nice toys for you. Blade Wind devastates armies of many low-prot. units giving little or no damage to your own units. It can also kill archers /crossbowmen in high numbers, and use up Mirror Images of Vans (I think). Magma Bolts gives enough damage to kill or atleast damage your own units, but is also good versus your enemies. Earthquake is similar in use to Blade Wind, but could catch unwary mages from other side of the battlefield. These could be your own mages too, so use this with care! Magme Eruption is very powerful, Flame Eruption is dangerous to use because the caster would have to be in the front. Gifts from Heaven would give high damage, but they would kill your own units with their low precision.

Fast Army:
Black Knights, Sappers, Master Smiths with access to Earth 3 (Earth power or Earth boots, generally), summons with strat. move of 2 or more

have some Black Knights or summons (hold and) attack closest while Sappers fire at closest (if many/if dangerous), large(if few big dangerous units) or archers (if enemy has crossbows or mages mixed with archers/crossbowmen). Remember that Sappers can be divided to many squads with different targets, but don't overdo it. Small squads rout easily. Some Black Knights can hold&attack rear, to catch enemy archers or mages. Master Smiths can fill the role of Sappers (Blade Wind, Earthquake) or cast more dangerous spells to kill enemy Knights/Heavy infatry (Magma Bolts, Magma Eruption). Summoned Earth Elementals are only useful if the battle Lasts long enough for them to reach the enemy, so they are mostly useless.

Your general armies would have shielded infantry attacking enemy closest, black knights in rear (hold&)attacking rear, closest or archers, maybe some arbalests if enemy had something with very high hp/prot. like Cyclops. About weapons and what they are good against:

pike: high length -> repel -> only good against units pikemen can easily hit and that have either bad morale (no hits get through) or high morale and few hits (few repels kill them)

flail: two attacks -> good against low def/low prot/units that only die to luck anyway

battleaxe: high damage -> good against heavy armor
maul: high damage but cheaper -> good against heavy armor
if you have enough money/units, use battleaxes, if you need numbers take mauls, if they die anyway take mauls.


morningstar & shield: high prot. + morningstars have bonus against shields (shield def. bonus is negated) -> good versus units that have big shields

hammer & shield: high prot., no defence penalty from morningstar -> better against enemies you don't want to get hit by (but independent militia or mercenaries and any kind of crossbows, archers or mages would be better. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

All nations with access to Air can negate your units' strength, so Caelum, Vanheim and Pythium are dangerous. Arcoscephale can also get Air 3, and after first they can make more boosters. Any nation that can have D2+ mage, lots of undead and lots of death gems to burn at you in the early/mid game can use Death BLast with some undead fodder to kill your elites.
Any nation that can access units you can't really hurt (Vanir with Water blessing, Temple Guards oe Caelum in cold provinces with Water blessing...) or super combatants, mainly blood summons, some of the elemental royalties (Earth/Fire Kings, Air/Water Queens), Bane Lords and Wraith lords to a lesser extent, many of the pretenders after equipping/if lots of design points are burned to paths. Mostly the same ones as earlier, but also Mictlan and Abysia. Abysia also has access to high-damage AoE battle spells their troops are immune to, and Mictlan has lots of mages so that you don't know what to be ready against.
Any nation that has units that can strike through your armour. Jotunheim with its giants, T'ien Ch'i with Glaive-armed warriors and crossbows (but they die easily to your troops, too, so this is a draw) and Celestial Warriors (which are much harder), Marignong has Crossbows, both two-handed swords and halberdiers, fire and astral magic -> access to AoE fire spells, magic resistance spells and the ultimate combination: Astral Fires.

Ulm has lots of problems against almost anything, if the other are ready for you. Air nations without air evocations cannot kill you, Mictlan without Blood Magic is a laugh (unfortunately, Mictlan players know this and *always* have Blood magic researched, even if you attack them by turn 7), Jotunheim doesn't have enough giants in the beginning.


You might also want to try Iron Faith. Iron Faith's Black Priests aren't immune to drain, so you can't take free points from that and are indeed *forced* to take some, but they get sacred Black Knights and Black Priests have forge bonus plus some random magic. If nothing else, the friend you play with doesn't know what to expect.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Welcome to the forums.

Ulm is the "armored tanks" army of the game. You have a great "front line". But if I remember correctly you want to set them forward on the battlefield becaue they dont run well (fatigue can kill them). In fact, the "hold and attack closest enemy" command is your friend.

Ulm has a real hole in its magic, so many people create what they call "rainbow pretenders". Instead of a super-combat pretender. Ulm is ok in the combat area so you can fill the magic need by creating a pretender with as much magic in as many areas as possible (rainbow).

For most nations I recommend quickly getting the first few levels in 3 or 4 magic areas. And some nation needs summoned creatures quickly. In your case I think its construction you need fast in order to add some magic casting items to your leaders.

Pay attention to what provinces are out there. You need their units to fill out your armies. Any type of magic caster, any type of archer, any type of fast flanker, and anything that lets you add cheap builk numbers to your army.

Anything that can stand far back and attack you forcing your heavy armored dudes to have to run across the battlefield.

Yep. The pros and cons of it all. The other side of that problem is the fact that this is one game you will definetly get your moneys worth from. Ive had it for years and still find new things to try out.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Thank you much everyone. I'm gonna give these suggestions a good try. My game is Indy strength 9, 4 AI at difficult level, I'm playing on the Sundering map, and magic research is the most difficult.

Thanks again!

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

If you are new to the game, you might experience the difficult AI as unbeatable, so don't be surprised if the game does not end in your favor.

Some small additions to what has been said before:

You should consider building normal ulmish infantry instead of black steel infantry. Although they have lower protection, they are still as well protected as most of the other heavy infantries. THis helps in early expansion, as you can field more troops against the indies. Later in the game you should switch to black steel.

You might find that Abysia is a nation more suitable to learn how to play dominion properly:
Their troops are nearly as good as those of Ulm
You have better priests
You have more magic.
They are good in early and in the late game, even if you skip blood.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Shouldn't lightning be negated by electrically conductive armor, rather than the other way around?

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Play Abysia. They play easy for beginners, having good troops and nice mages to play artillery with them.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Oh yeah, AND you may actually get the chance to summon cool demons, given you Last long enough for that to happen...

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

I'd agree with considering regular Ulm infantry rather than blacksteel; the regulars move faster, get tired less and have a higher defence rating. I hardly ever use blacksteel, as a matter of fact.

Black knights are too expensive for the early game. For the cost of one knight you can get seven infantrymen; a much better deal, especially once they've racked up experience and afflictions. Later on, they may come in handy too add some much-needed speed and especially routing power to your army. But they're still horribly vulnerable to astral, poison and lightning.

I'd make your prophet a Master Smith, rather than the (admittedly tempting) Black Lord. The accuracy bonus will make a noticeable difference to your blade winds, and the Smith is better suited to utilising the prophet's priestly powers, as well as being more likely to survive a lost battle.

I have never liked Guardians. They are good soldiers, yes, but they cost twice as much as regular Ulmish troops, which is too much for my liking. Additionally, they have all the weaknesses of other Ulmish troops; slow, quick to tire, weak defence, low magic resistance. Their equipment is no better than the other Ulmish soldiers; halberds have good damage and length (and a siege bonus), but terrible attack and defence. Greatswords would be a much better choice, IMO.

Arbalests are tricky to use. I like to stick them as far to the front as possible. They usually only fire once before the melee begins, so it might as well be a good shot. Plus they're armoured, so counter-archer fire will not be much of a problem. And when the melee begins, you definitely want them shooting as accurately as possible, since they can hurt your troops quite badly. Ideally you want an air mage handy to cast wind guide.

Just because you're drain-3 doesn't mean you should ignore sages. Even at drain-3, they are still more efficient researchers than smiths, and their random magic pick is a vital tool for broadening your magical base. Hire loads of them.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Shame on everyone who replied. One would think that someone would give the
newbie the one good piece of advice about playing standard/iron faith Ulm:

DO NOT.

Ulm sucks. Everyone knows it sucks late game, but against half-decent players
the obvious problems raise their ugly heads as early as turn ten. And of
course, Ulm sucks even before that, although it is less than obvious.

Just read between the lines of the 'advice' you have been given: Blacksteel
sucks because of high fatigue, slow movement, and low defense. Most troops are
overpriced. Arbalests get one good shot, and then do as much damage to your
troops as to anyone else. No priests worth mentioning... Your starting spell
requires some research before your pitiful mages can use it. Later on, you
will have a only handful of tricks, tricks for which everyone who intends to
walk over you will have prepared.

Sure, once you forsake the supercombatant, take drain, spend tons of design
points on a good castle and productivity, you will have an easy time against
indies. Big deal! A player will a decent pretender will wipe the floor with
your overrated troops, a player with cheaply massed mages (Caelum, Pythium, etc)
will show you why magic trumps steel as early as turn five, Abysia will burn
you, Ermor/C'tis will drown you in undead, R'lyeh will paralize your vulnerable
and sluggish troops, etc, etc, etc... Oh, by the way, many nations could
field better troops than you, especially if they took the kind of scales Ulm
requires.

The only thing that can delay your death in a multiplayer game is diplomacy...
diplomacy of the kind where you become some real nation's client state (i.e.
forge *****)

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Fear the flying smiths with axes of sharpness killing your commanders.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Tuidjy usually gives good advice - listen to the Laird of La La Land. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Don't play Ulm.

If you do : forget a lot of what you've been told. First: Unless it's been changed recently, it hasn't seemed that troops incur fatigue while walking, even if they really should. Infantry walks across the field with no fatigue; armored light bows takes five turns to start getting tired...

Logically, troops _should_ get tired wearing heavy armor, even just walking. Near as I can tell, they don't - that's why archers never get tired, and why heavy infantry doesn't fall asleep even in the rear of the battle formation.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Aw, I like Ulm!

Then again, my reasons aren't because I think it's stronger than others.

It does have the advantage for new players of having not so much to learn. If played against an equally-new opponent, this could be fine.

1 What are my best troops, strengths, weaknesses?

Good armor and forging bonuses are the main strengths. All the troops have pros and cons. Weaknesses are lack of magic variety and not very high morale nor magic resistance.

2 What sort of pretender is Ulm successful with? Any specific examples, or general hints?

I've had good luck with a dragon... against the AI, anyway.
Ghost King with many paths at 2+ can be good, especially with Iron Faith.

3 Are there any strategies, magic research, or item forging levels I should be looking to reach quickly?

Construction to take advantage of your forge bonus. Earth Boots and Dwarven Hammers. Try to find and conquer provinces with independent mages, so you can add magic paths to your arsenal to cover that weakness. Druids, Amazons, Wizards, etc.

4 What sort of armies should I build? (unit combinations)

If you hire arbalests, set them to fire at archers or rearmost, to avoid hurting your own men, and/or deploy them in armies different from your armies with infantry and knights.

I usually hire few if any arbalests, and most armies are a variety of infantry of Ulm, with independent shortbow archers for support, since they will rarely hurt your well-armored infantry. The infantry needs to have enough men to be a solid rock, and should be accompanied by other independent recruits who serve as fodder and distractions.

Knights can be good, but I wait until I can afford them, and then use them as flank strike Groups to complement the other armies, rather than by themselves or as direct assault forces, because that way they tend to die without doing much more than they cost, if that.

Level 3+ priests can cast Surmon of Courage to help keep your troops from routing.

Be sure to include enough troops - the more you send, the less fatigue will build up, and the less likely they are to rout.

Troops with shields are better at withstanding arrows.

5 What sort of armies/nations should I be afraid of? What sort of "" will I stack up well against?

Your Ulmish infantry will do well against most standard humanoid troops.

Against enemies who are well suited against your national troops, deploy something besides your national troops! That means using independents and summons or whatever else you can muster, against things that ignore armor such as poison gas, soul vortex, etc.

Some veterans will say that troops like Ulm's are useless once magic has been researched high enough, and say how that's only a few turns into the game. I think they are exagerating, especially if your opponent is a new player.

PvK

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

You forgot one thing. He is not playing against decent, or even half-decent players. Having easy time against independents *can* be a good reason to play Ulm, if you just started playing and would ahve otherwise!

Many nations have better troops than Ulm, all have better mages, almost all have more cost-efficient mages, many have cheaper mages... but Ulm is the simple nation. So simple it has a hard time against most others, if the other nations are played by someone who knows every trick of the game. But it is also the simplest nation to learn the game with: Recruit, Conquer, Repeat, Win.

Also, most Ulmish units are cheap in gold. The resource costs are very high, but resources and gold are used for different things.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

If I calculated right, with the following pretender you'll be able to forge any path booster item eventually:

Crone

F3
A3
W2
S3
D2
N2
Order 2
Produc 3
Growth 1
Magic -3
DOM4
Castle 40/100
5 left

Important items which Ulm can forge cheaply, but which are overlook often:
- Sceptre of Authority
- Girdle of Might
- Stinger
- Blood Stone (needs Blood)

Place Shortbow-Archers or Slingers behind you main line (which should be set to "hold and attack", or even "guard commander" with some heavy inf commanders among them). Set the archers to "fire at nearest". They wouldn't be able to hurt you prot 23 troops, but will hurt any less armored enemy.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

With Ulm, it really is all about getting an explosive start, which might include taking out a weak nation to get a second capital. Ulm does not necessarily have to win early to win, but it must get enough of a leg up early to put itself in a position that offsets its weaker late game. In other words, you can hang around in the late game, but only if you acquired more resources than everyone else in the early game to offset your weakness.

Blade wind is a must, but understand that it will stop working at some point when other forces get creatures with protection levels as high as yours. Magma eruption should work, but the casting seems spotty and inaccurate, and I have often taken out more of my own units than the enemy. The magical constructs are okay, but are very fragile. They are likely your only hope against air magic, however (see below). Get the global that brings extra earth gems up (forget its exact name right now). Get the Earth Kings, and start hammering the other side's bastard spell casters with earth attacks, a relatively cheap (especially if you are getting heavy earth gem income from the global) assassination spell. Ulm is very pretender oriented (they are always important, but particularly for Ulm). I agree with the earlier posters - an SC is nice, but Ulm desperately needs additional magic paths, and they are likely to only come from your pretender (at least until your pretender can summon other creatures with magic paths).

That said, I do believe that Ulm is underpowered/overpriced. All of the forged items (one of your two main strenghts) are nice; good luck finding some place useful to put them. Your lack of magical paths mean that you won't have access to the SC summons that can actually hold the items without being easy pickings (and thus merely transfer the items to another player when the holder dies). You will be absolutely slaughtered by air magic, in particular the grossly overpowered/too easily available wrathful skies. The descriptions of Ulm make a big deal out of their drain resistance; don't expect this to have any real impact on the battlefield (it would be cool if fighting Ulm did really impact the opponents spell casting, but it doesn't).

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

I learned with Ulm. And while I don't play much MP, I think Ulm does have things to recommend it. The strategies are rather simple for a beginning player.

Forging decent items in appropriate numbers is easiest to learn when you are forging items for half cost with dwarven hammers. I like to use eyes of aiming on my smiths. You can see the difference that makes with blade wind.

I find Ulm useful for learning the strengths of the various independent magi. And for using a rainbow pretender. Those Ulmish troops start to totally rock when combined with Gift of Health and spells such as level-9 mechanical militia.

I find that extra fortresses benefit Ulm as they do almost no other nation. Because they allow recruitment of your strong national troops anywhere.

I find pikeneers useful against abyssia. My usual recruitment is black plate pikeneers or morningstars. Depending on the force I'm facing.

Ulm is fun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Against air magic, mechanical men work quite well as a front and a shield, but the need to protect your commanders/mages will kill you. I prefer Iron Faith/Black forest to standard ulm any day. IF is probaly the best forger in the game, even if it loses the 120 points for free drain scale. Summon the creatures to use the items with pretender http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. BF gets the always-as-cool mile-wide mass of Vampires, that while not exactly a winning strategy, will provide you with defence that is nearly impossible to (Really) kill and will likely cause heavy casualties on any attackers who come too close, securing you time to prepare another strategies. Add battle fortune/will of the fates/haste/mass protection/antimagic to help dealing with enemy magic.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Just wanted to update you all on my game:

It's turn 50 something, and I (Ulm) am the dominant force in the game. I started out 3 provinces from C'tis, whom my BP infantry, crossbows, and master smiths were able to crush rather easily. I focused on getting summon earthpower and bladewind as my first tasks, and they work wonderfully. Even better now that my smiths are using the eye of aiming.

I was able to crush my opponents (Rl'yeh) largest army. I took heavy casualties, but I was able to out produce him with my more provinces and more fortresses. I mass produced independant, cheap militia and ichthyids, and his Illithids spent their time killing them off while my blade winds and Black Knights were able to get behind and inflict massive casualties behind the lines. I have two secondary forces holding off Man and Marignon, and I'm beating them too.

Thanks for the strategies. One Last question: What is the best way to get a large Ulmish force underwater? Forging magic pills and beathing amulets?(I was able to find a magic site with air sorceresses, so I can forge them en-masse if I need.

Thank you all for the help. I think I'm on the brink of winning if I don't make too many mistakes. First to master Ulm, then to work on Marignon.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

For standard Ulm, use Earth magic to get a force which will go underwater. Mechanical Men and Living Statues are amphibious, and Gargoyles might be as well, and they have the additional advantage of being immune to poison (a lot of underwater types use poisoned gear...). You'll need to attach 'em to an amphibious commander, however (e.g. one with a breathing item).

Also, consider using Earth Attack to kill off triton commanders; 100 tritons, without commanders, will rout instantly instead of surrounding and attacking.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

I won my game. I was a dominant force all game, I crushed the difficult AI and my player opponent perished from lack of dominion.

Thanks for all the help http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

There's no need to forsake a SC pretender with Ulm in order to get extra magical paths. You'll want either a Prince of Death or Ghost King anyways to take full advantage of black steel armour early on, and they can both get all the other magic paths that you'll need.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Those are SCs? I was thinking more along the lines of the Wyrm when I was talking SCs.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

A wyrm and other monster pretenders are thugs. They can't stand up to a SC, which is something that can kill an entire mage supported army by itself.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Unless the mages can cast enough anti-sc spells in 1 turn to eliminate the SC .

Those mages are though likely more expensive then the SC himself cause you would need either drain life casters or petrify casters ( or other very expensive / questionable mages like gifts from heaven casters etc. ) .

If the SC is a "weak" undead like a banelord though with dust to dust + wither bones there are 2 more good spells against him and they are cheap aquireable .

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

I just defined a SC as something that can survive such an attack. That would mean that it has to have magic resist of around 25 or more, between 50 to 100 hitpoints, and immunity to elemental damage.

Banelords are not SCs. They are thugs as they can be killed by elite normal troops even when completely equipped with anti-troop equipment (non-artifact) and no MR boosting or elemental resist items.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Could someone give me an exact example of an SC so I know what you're talking about? Are these commander units, pretenders, summoned units, or otherwise? The closest thing I had to what I think you guys are talking about was a Black Lord with every slot with something forged for him. (He won the arena deathmatch easily...) I know this is nowhere near what you folks are talking about, but I would like to know what an SC is to you folks.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

nah, think about some sizes bigger, maybe an Ice Devil with lots of stuff, a life draining weapon an armor that negates most elemental magic, something to increase his magic resistance, a pendant of luck and something that gives him etherealness and regeneration.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Heh heh. Will your Black Lord thug mow down an army of 150+ soldiers single-handedly? I think not. On the other hand, an Ice Devil equipped as PrinzMegaherz says will kill an army composed of however many mortal troops you put into it quite easily. That's SC.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

And that's also the reason I don't play MP. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Also, consider this:
nation with Order 3 and Magic 3 to be able to get lots of mages and research fast, all other scales at varying negative levels to get points.

A pretender with good abilities (eg. a Ghost King: ethereal, good defence) and W1/2, F1+, E3+, Air3+, D3+. It researches Alteration 2/3 and Enchantment 1. It goes to battle, casts Quickness, Fire Shield, Stone/Iron skin, Mirror Image, Mistform and kills all independents. Depending on that nation's mages and gem income, it got a weapon like Ice Sword (def+4) or (Full) Black Plate if it has encumberance of 0.
If it already has high enough protection, it will cast Breath of Winter instead of protection spell. If it goes against archers, it casts Air Shield.

It has att/def 17+ (depends on equipment), hits 50+ (if mage-type) or 150+ (if it is a Son of Niefel or similar titan-sized), prot. 15 to 25, Mirror Image gives more defence and protects from hits, Mistform puts all damage it received to 1 until a hit gets through the spell (rare), units hitting it or near it die to Fire Shield/Breath of Winter.

Here is an example from the 10 Turn Challence:

There is also a similar Son of Niefel in that thread. In late game, people summon creatures that have goot stats and hit points and preferably good abilities and equip them with items to give them as much of the rest as possible. Thugs are like SC, but weaker. Imagine 30 hp, 20 prot., life-draining, flying Bane Lord with Quickness. Imagine battling a nation with over 20 of them. And few real SCs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Or an even unequipped VQ http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

There are some remarkable national troops though that sometimes can kill an SC :
- Good tramplers can sometimes luckily kill a SC which has no etheralness
- Jotunheim troops do serious damage when they hit
- Good blessed troops
- X-bows/Arlabests
- The initial lance attack from HC ( Panther lost a full equipped ID to 20 or 25 HC event attack in our newbie slugfest )
- Small troops that have 20+ damage , i.e. barbarians

I surely forgot some kinds of troops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Stronger summonable troops like Deccans blessed tomb wyrms from newbie slugfest can kill many SCs . Angels or ether warriors are quite nasty against undead/demon Scs or Magic Being SCs .

No SC is completely invulnerable .
Vs. lots of low hp troops he can protect himself quite well via fire shield / BoW / Astral shield etc. ,
Etheral + Luck are good in general vs troops ,
really high protection helps against almost any troops expect Jotunheim troops etc.

BUT if the SC is built especially anti troops then he normally lacks something else very important and is weak vs. Anti-SC-SCs or has rather low MR etc. .

If your troops are "buffed" with extra-strength + ap spells "elite" troops like mechanical men or devils can kill almost any SC .

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

And sleepvines. Don't forget the sleepvines. Damn those sleepvines!

(Lost fully decked out Aella to sleepvine indy; An Ancient Presence, I think).

Paralyse +27 was another good one. Bye bye Allfather.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Shambler Chiefs with Black Steel Armor, Piercer and Girdle of Might. Are quite cheap for Ulm. And fun. And if one gets afflicted, or killed, just get the next one and drop the stuff on him ...

And if you have 2 fire gems to spare, and a smith who's bored, add a burning pearl. Makes fire shield quite useless against him.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Constant tangle vines (or nets or whatever), undead vs. life drain, ethereal crossbows, black bows of Bothulf...

PvK

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

von_Schmidt --

Yep. The "Ancient Presence" event is nasty even if you win, too, since a rather large portion of the province's population is killed.

Pan CW not only cranks out units with sleep vines, it even gets a darn fine SC chassis (an Ettin Mandragora -- numerous hp, three arm slots, other slots mostly normal except maybe -1 misc?, recuperation!) with something like 2 or 3 sleep vines.

Re: Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help
 

Yeah the Ettin mandragora is really gorgeous .

He keeps his sleepvine attacks .
So with quickness that should be 3*3*2 sleep vine attacks / turn and of course up to 3 weapons *2 as well .

Furthermore he is LL , is Sacred and has Recuperation .

So if you plan ahead you can support him with a Dualbless . Then he really kicks *** and is probably even deadlier then an AQ or a Nataraja . The only thing that hurts a bit is that he has only 1 Misc slot like the nataraja .