MA Ulm Pretender
 

With the new changes, what is your pretender going to look like? Rainbow Master Enchantress with enough Earth to reinvig those sacred smiths?

Also if you were going to build an awake SC pretender for MA Ulm to defend against rushes (which my opponents like to do) what would you make?

Thanks in advance for the answers.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

In MP, Ulm still needs a size 6 awake pretender to stop elephant rush. None of the changes help with that.

Just a quick thought, Father of Winters, 4w4a4n. 3order, 2cold, 1 growth, 3 drain.

Forge him on turns 2-5 black plate, sword sharpness, shield,
and helmet, and he will be a formidable sc.

High priority research, ench 2 for personal regeneration, alt for quickness, mistform, mirror image.

While this pretender could not safely solo take provinces on turn 2, by turn 8-10 he could kill any dragon or wyrm sc's. And he would laugh at elephants, hydras, and mammoths.

This pretender would see Ulm into the midgame, where they seem to rarely reach in the mp games i have been in.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Have you tried an awake Prince of Death to counter an elephant rush? His high defense prevents him from getting trampled too badly and the fear is great against elephants too.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Until they cast touch of madness on the elephants.

A bigger fear early is arcos. if they have 2-3 astrologers with their elephants solar rays can mess up undead pretty bad, caelum get lightning early, and ulm cannot make rings sr protection. Bandar log can also cast solar rays.

Father of Winters can cast resist lighting, has superior hps,
and would give Ulm access to 3 new paths. And he is extremely hard to kill once he gets decked out and buffs.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

An awake Prince of Death with Dom9-10, D5(or more) and possibly some earth magic(E/D makes shadow brands, earth gives him ironskin/invunerability) really helps Ulm. Stops alot of early rushes, particularly elephants - and now with new and improved guardians to stop dangerous sacred rushes you should do well early on.

Get him ironskin and some basic equipment and he should be ready to go and beat on some enemies. Black Plate Infantry do far better against PD than against big, well scripted armies(the difference is bigger than it is for most other units) so if you can get your Prince of Death to target fairly large armies and leave your troops to mop up you can actually take out one or two enemies early on - I mean who will expect to be rushed by Ulm?

Later on, your pretender can help diversify your magic. Spectres and much later Tartarians can greatly broaden your available magic paths and demiliches can get you heavily into death. He can also summon banelords ect midgame for you to cheaply thug out.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Several viable choices for pretender. And many experienced mp may have many different preferences.

One thing I think all would agree with though, is that Ulm must take an awake pretender that can fend off an elephant rush.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

PoD is amazing for Ulm. My build for him involves this.

2x Black Kite Shields
1x Steel Helm
1x Black Steel Full Plate
1x Boots of Behemoth (Note, PoD can take out any indies without these due to fear, but this actually gives him the ability to get kills instead of just routing the enemy when you start fighting actual armies)
2x Bracers of Protection

The above build is completely built out of earth magic items and is absolutely ridiculous http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif What you really want though is a lucky amulet, and probably an amulet of antimagic for the misc slots. Or maybe something like a ring of elemental magic protection depending on who you are fighting.

Jazzepi

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I did a duel between Ulm and arcos. Used awake pod 6d 9 dominion. In a fight with arcos, in Ulm dominion, POD started with 99 hps and 21 mr. He has a level 2 priest and 1 mage cast earth shards, lots skellies, 10 guardians, and 50 crossbows.

Arcos has 15 elephants mixed with heart companions(about 20),
1 priestess(prophet), and 6 astrologers with evoc 2 research.

3 astrologers died to crossbow fire, but the other 3 using solar rays made short work of the pod. Since 2 of the elephant rush nations have strong astral mages, and the other has strong air, my personal preference remains the Father of Winters.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I had big plans to Dust to Dust a PoD built almost exactly like Jazzepi's (but not 2x Bracers of Protection ... are you sure they stack?). But my mages set on Dust to Dust went berserk and charged, oops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Then I got lucky and Smited the PoD to death.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I have had great luck with dust to dust and maggots agianst PoD. Its almost too easy.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

In my testing they did. The 2nd pair was only worth like +1 protection, but I'm a protection whore you know, and since it's relatively inexpensive to forge I threw it on there.

I had TERRIBLE LUCK with dust to dust against your stupid PoD in the first mega game D:

Jazzepi

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

It was a PoD built by Jazzepi! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

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

I was so close to crushing your last skeleton spamming mages defending your capitol - *bam*, smited.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Out of duels against elephants or small rush friendly maps I would prefer a rainbow great sage offering real magic diversity and curing the real weakness of the nation : without him the magic race is lost.

my build : great sage F3 A2 W2 S3 E2 D2 N3 B1, dom 5, order 3, prod 2, misf 2, growth 1, drain 3, heat 1

26 RP / turn may look a negligible advantage but having them since the beginning can snowballs more than being one of the numerous players with a totally unimaginative awake SC chassis.

4 forts with lab (economize on temples) must be built as soon as possible, and researchers the priority, even if the price is taking just one province/turn when ennemies take 2 or 3 the first year.

Evo 3 and thaum 2 will be researched fast so priest smiths and others start to be usefull on the battlefield and can cast gnome lore (and augury sometimes), then Con 6 for lanterns and powerful boosters, Evocation 6, enchantment *or* conjuration 6 to be able to summon some thugs -or if you have nature or astral income early, target a gem producing global the sage can cast with boosters, ench 7 for stellar focus or alt 5 for mother oak, but don't search levels 5+ in more than one school out of conjuration & evocation-, and then go for construction 8 before other endgame magics.

With construction 6 reached around turn 20-25 and many lanterns forged as soon it's possible (fire gems may be the problem, and so should be the first trade objective) only nations taking magic 3 may beat you in the magic race, even if the sage now forge boosters or search sites.

Also reaching construction 6 fast and being able to forge items of many paths is an huge diplomatic advantage. You can furnish what your neighbour need and can't forge and you have a small territory but hard to take with all your forts, you don't look like a threat and your weak dominion don't spoils neighbours magic scales. You must be really unlucky if someone attack you with all these goods reasons to take on someone else.

As other nations will often research level 5+ in more than 3 schools because their mages have more possibilities, or go for a level 8 in another school first, the artefact race should be won (or at least you should be one of the first, with a lot to forge).

Once you can make artefacts the difference between a rainbow and a PoD shines : with the boosters you had been able to make you can forge a lot of things at -45% cost with the master smiths having one random, and more with the sage himself. Also a smith with an astral pick can summon golems with the two astral boosters. And the iron angels are summonable with some effort.

And once you have researched conjuration with a booster you have the same capacity to summon spectres (and then liches and tartarians, if you have D2, you'll have D7) but as you are also able to forge nature boosters and the magic rings, you will be able to GoR your tartarians far more easily (and eventually some powerful constructs can also worth to be GoRed before you have access to tartarians).

ps : of course it's a weak strategy
- if someone rush you
- if you have to fight an astral or other MR spells using nation in midgame (no temper the will)
- if your sage die and lose 8 magic levels, killed by the archer of Bogus team the first time he goes out to search some sites near the capitol (happened to me :" )

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Once spells like dust to dust start flying around it's probably best to retire your Prince of Death to casting, forging and possibly raiding.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

You can raid with her all day long, even after DTD starts being cast.

Jazzepi

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Mmm, Princess of Death! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Does she wear an Ankh around her neck? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Don't worry, Jazzepi is just a little gender confused http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

And my worries about raiding were: teleporting mages with dust to dust along with the fact that alot of nations with dust to dust could also have death mages with their PD.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Again, if you are Ulm and facing an elephant rush you need your pretender to fight, not forge etc. and solar rays can be researched very quickly. And the pod cannot stand up to solar rays.

That is why, in my humble opinion, the best pretender for withstanding an early elephant rush is Father of Winters. D magic is easy to tie in to. you do not really have to have a death pretender to end up with tartarians in the endgame.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Tawn, a great sage is better than anything but a rainbow ghost king unless you
are attacked. By taking one, you guarantee that if you are attacked in the
first twenty turns, you will lose the game. It is not just elephants that will
tear your armies up. A SC pretender backed up by a decent army and high level
priests will also make short work of Ulm's smiths and troops.

I just finished a three way MA game with Ulm against Caelum and Man. I was
extremely lucky as I found the Mirror Wall Palace, one of the enchantress forests,
and the Daoine Sidhe hill (never seen it before), and because the map placement
stuck Man between Caelum and me. Still, there was a moment in the middle game,
when my Pretender was everything that stood between Caelum's shock backed
mammoths/thugs and defeat. Yes, my sorceresses could deal with small numbers
of mammoths, and my Daoine Sidhe made fine raiders once I got enough druids to
lead/bless/berserk them. But Ulm still has a huge mid game period in which it
has nothing to throw at non-sacred thugs - Banes and Wraiths in this case.

By the way, my pretender was the air/earth titan, with 4A1W4E3D, and
Order/Production/Misfortune/Drain scales. A small map pretender, by all means,
and probably worse than Xietor's Father of Winter. Still, Ulm needs something
in MP, if the nation wants to hold its head high, as opposed to sending messages
like 'Please, please, let me live, I will forge anything you want until the
end of the game' I have gotten messages like this.

-------

By the way, I did not get a good feel of the usefulness of the new additions,
except for the holy smiths. Man went down too quickly, and my guardians did
not get a chance to kill wardens. The Iron Blizzards killed one thug, but it
was freakish good luck - he managed to get within spitting range, and ran
out of action points - he must have eaten 30 darts... that would have
probably taken out a Tartarian, let alone a wraith lord with no shield.
I did not go for Iron Angels, and as for the lightened armour, indies died to
Ulm just fine before.

But the holy smiths are Heaven sent. One can furnish a castle with lab/temple,
costs half as much to maintain, easily gets to 4E +6 reinvigoration... I love'em.
I hate hearing that they will be getting old age. Ulm is really short on design
points, and thus my Ulm will never get enough growth. Why should they be old,
anyway? Usually it is the young rebels that adopt new trends. And why the hell
are the normal smiths flirting with old age out of the box, anyway? If you're
going to age the holy smiths, make the standard ones younger.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Tuidjy -- I agree about making the regular Master Smiths younger. Let them not die of old age, it's a little silly.

Twan admitted that the rainbow strategy was weak against rushes or on small maps. On that kind of map, Ulm really does need the Prince of Darkness build or something like it.

To say that you are guarenteed to be attacked in the first 20 turns if you take a rainbow is just not true.. there's never a guarentee about anything. I agree that it makes it more likely that you will be attacked, how much more so is impossible to say.

Yet, even if you are attacked, you're not defenseless. I know you disagree, but arbelests are actually effective in dealing with people's SC gods. With the CB mod you can have your smiths cast Blindness also in the early game. I think you are seriously underestimating Ulm's power in the early game, especially with the new changes to Guardians. And the +1 morale! That is key.

Although even before, it was not hopeless. With Production-3 and the Ulm production bonus, you have a serious edge on troop production. Black Knights are one of the best non-sacred cavalry out there, and Black Lord thugs are very effective if given a magic weapon. Ulm also has a edge on the mercenary front, given the huge supply of cash they can save up in the early turns.

Elephants can ruin your day, though, no doubt.

Twan - I have a build very much like yours, except for a couple points. I prefer the Great Enchantress, because I think the +1 astral pearl per turn is far better than the research bonus. Also, I don't think that Ulm needs a 5 dominion, either. But, that is being picky. Another nitpick, I would drop Growth and also drop Heat -- Heat is -5% money, Growth is only +2%. I suppose the pop growth would pay that off eventually, but it doesn't seem worth it, imo. Also, dang... how can you get away with not taking production-3 with Ulm (and also not taking an SC god)? I am baffled.. doesn't that slow your early expansion?

Also, I try to go straight for Construction-6, if possible (for lanterns), and then on to Construction-8 if I'm not being attacked. You are in it for the long-haul with this build, and hoping not to be attacked, might as well go the whole 9 yards if you are allowed to do so.

So, the ideal is that you will build a Ring of Wizardry around turn 25 or so with your pearls you have saved up, then move on to artifacts (Hammer of the Forge Lord!), before you've even researched any other school. Pay people off to make friends, share the wealth.

Tuidjy, I know what you are thinking, that this would never work against good opponents, and maybe against the absolute best opponents in some sort of World Series of Dominions it wouldn't work. But in typical games against typical opponents in non-newbie games it usually works fine in my experience.

You seem very concerned about getting rushed early game, but generally isn't it true that you are either double-teamed or are the one double-teaming your opponent? People die when they are double-teamed and are successful when they double-team someone else. So, being worried about how Ulm would fare in a 1v1 rush is a little beside the point. I think it is best to worry about how to get on the right side of that double-team. And Ulm is well equipped with the forge bonus as a diplomatic tool to be able to do that.

Edit: I wanted to add more thing, Xietor's Father of Winter looks like a great SC god. But, I think this same god would be better suited for another faction. Not taking production scales with Ulm is just.. I don't know.. I mean, was it a random game and you were forced to pick Ulm, when you really wanted someone else?

Xietor, you say that Ulm needs an awake SC to deal with elephants and that's true. But the sort of god you threw out there just seems like the kind of god another faction would take. I think it's an attempt to shore up Ulm's weaknesses rather than a build to maximize Ulm's strengths, which I think is a mistake.

I think if you get elephant rushed as Ulm and you have no allies to back you up you just die. I am content with that and would just start another game where I'd hope to do better. Whereas your build, I think, would get you to the midgame where you'd lose just about every time. But that is just my take on it.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Hmmm, I wonder if CUnknown is actually one of my alter egos I'm not aware of. Your thinking on Ulm is spot on my own. I was going to write a MA Ulm guide until I saw you had written one and it covered basically all the points I would make. I think people really underestimate how effective Ulm's advantages can be in mid game. Focusing on construction early? How weak are those swarms of cheap dudes when buffed with weapons of sharpness and strength of giants while your enemies are earth melded? Magma eruption is arguably the strongest mid-line evocation spell and every one of your 140 gp mages can cast it. Destruction is brutal when cast by several mages in a battle and you should have *lots* of smiths. Then there's that little forge bonus...

As to being defenseless against elephants, I again call phooey. Obviously this boils down to player skill, but a couple reasonable counters come to mind depending on what you've got available- again, keeping in mind what Ulm does have going for it. With Ulm you should have a couple castles up pretty fast and plenty of smiths to field if you're rushed. Magma bolts. Bonds of fire. Body ethereal (from pretender, smith randoms, mercenaries, lizard shamans, sages - you only need a couple S1 mages) cast on 12 or so Black Knights can easily take out a similar gold cost of elephants. Assuming you took a rainbow pretender depending on your research paths you can combine the above with panic/terror and all the classic MR check counters. My preference is also the enchantress for Ulm and I find it very viable.

Personally, I research some of the above spells for exactly this reason before I begin focusing on construction. If you do end up being rushed, push through for destruction or magma eruption depending on what's coming at you. With just those spells a handful of smiths can beat back some pretty strong advances by just hiding behind PD meatshields.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Between prod 2 and prod 3 the difference isn't big for early expansion. Having a forest or a mountain near your capitol makes more difference (and anyway if you have only farmlands/swamps around Ulm is screwed). I prefer growth to reduce the old age affliction chances of the priest smiths (and heat... I always take 1 heat or 1 cold as temperatures varies with seasons anyway) and offer a little increase of income as we speak about a long game on big map.

Then I prefer the great sage because it give the edge on research even against other rainbows, and for some more turns against magic nations, but I agree the enchantress is a good choice too (probably better if you aren't lucky with site searching).

I find rushing straight to construction 8 risky. With the new evocation spells I find more logical to learn some battle magic first, and gnome lore is a must have since early game too.

Then my choice of searching conjuration 6 before construction 8 is discuttable, as someone really rushing the artefacts may beat Ulm. But I prefer to summon some spectres as early as possible to have more than one mage with death, to search sites or summon bane lords (of course if I have no death income by turn 20 I'd rather skip this phase, trolls kings don't worth the effort as you have hordes of earth mages).

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

For my own amusement, I made a 10 space random map and played a little test between arcos and ulm. I built 7 ulm black knights and set them on the front lines with attack nearest. I built 4 elephants and did the same command. The commanders I left on the back lines with "stay behind troops" so they wouldn't interfere.

Ulm wiped the floor with them twice, killing 3 than 2 with no losses. I tried a 3rd time, and ulm lost 5 knights out of 7, kill 2 elephants. Ulm routed, the elephants routed, and the arcos commander won the fight.

Obviously 3 quick fights aren't a wonderful test case, but the shock from black knights is enough to kill elephants pretty easily. Also obviously, support forces and tactics can change the equation, but that works both ways.

-Jeff

P.S. 7 knights - 385 gold. 4 elephants - 400 gold

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Little OT, but:
The Father of Winters design actually looks appealing for EA Ulm. You get points for Cold anyway, and EA Ulm has a variety of magic but no high paths.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

The elephant rush will have elephants mixed with high morale hyperists, and 4-5 astrologers, all casting mind burn-or worse.

A good elephant rush will have 20 elephants, not 3-5. And it will be backed by numerous astrologers, many whom teleport to the front lines to reinforce. In my experience, ulm's troops do not stand up well to mind burn/soul slay a bit later on.

Father of Winters and the scales were off the top of my head. I am sure a better awake sc/scales could be devised to stop elephant rushes. Especially since I would never have considered playing Ulm mp before the changes. So I have no real expertise in designing a pretender for them.

Having conquered them though, i have good ideas about their weaknesses in mp.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

a) I just wanted to see if ulm had a unit to counter elephants. The forum wisdom is that ulm has nothing that can beat an elephant. Nothing. But gold-cost equivalents did fine in my limited testing.

b) I specifically mentioned that support troops change things, but that it goes both ways. So you now need some smiths in the mix as well.

c) 20 elephants is 2000 gold. How many is "numerous" @180 apiece? I assume hyperiasts are hypaspists - how many of those? How much gold are we working with here?

d) what does a rush mean, exactly? That hardly sounds like a rush to my ears - it's a strong, prepared attack force. What turn do you expect to have that on?

-Jeff

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Admittedly I haven't been on the receiving end of an elephant rush orchestrated by you, that might be fun to try as I have beat back other rushes playing Ulm. Ignoring castle-recruitment constraints for a second, for the price of 3 elephants you get 2 smiths plus change. Obviously this isn't scalable because you can only recruit one smith per castle, but still given Ulm's typical early gold advantage and urgent castle building it's not unreasonable to expect to be able to field 10-12 smiths by the time you're looking at a 20 strong elephant force threatening you - and without permanently crippling your research curve. Assuming you marched a force as you describe into my territory at the end of year one I'd counter by trying to catch you as you attacked (shouldn't be hard) so you're running into about 40 PD backed by the dozen or so smiths leading whatever of the halberd wielding infantry I could scrape up over a couple turns from my multiple castles and prod-3 edge (likely in the 100-120 man range). Your initial elephant charge will be broken by 7 or 8 smiths spamming Bonds of Fire. It won't stop them all but they'll trickle in several at a time rather than in one overwhelming mass as even the ones not hit will have to run around those that are. While causing some damage, they'll quickly be surrounded and hacked to pieces by halberds. Meanwhile my remaining smiths begin raining magma bolts down into the elephants strung out by the fire bonds while my black plate keeps friendly fire from being too much of an issue. All the while your astrologers are popping 4-5 of my infantry per turn out of probably close to 200. By the end of the battle you've killed mostly my PD (which were in the front) and are out close to 2000 gold of elephants.

Would it work that well in practice? Perhaps, that's debatable (or better yet testable), but you'd have a hard time arguing that it'd have no chance. My point is that Ulm isn't helpless, you just have to use what you have at your disposal. Cheap troops, cheap mages, lots of gold/castles.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I am not an elephant rush player. In fact I am just playing arcos. for the 1st time in EH II. And I took a rainbow pretender.

Gameextremist always played arcos. and was king of the elephant rush. I have seen good players not playing Ulm fall to his elephant rush tactics. Somehow he always had 20 elephants very early in the game, back by mages. I suspect
he set taxes high, patrolled, and used his dragon to expand.


He did take an awake dragon, so you can forget about building a 2nd castle unless you had enough troops building it to defeat his dragon. So against a good rush player, you not only have elephants/mages to deal with, but an awake dragon.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Baalz -- I'm glad we agree! Us Ulm players have to stick together. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Twan -- I agree that rushing to artifacts is risky. I wouldn't do it every game, but as Ulm a nice bonus as Baalz pointed out is Weapons of Sharpness at Const-7. One of the best buffs, and Ulm can cast it with no problem.

However, I think I am inclined to agree with those like Xietor who say that Ulm is extremely weak when faced with a strong early game elephant rush, esp. backed with astral mages. Not that there is no hope if you are creative, but generally you will be in a world of hurt.

I just disagree that you should base your whole strategy with Ulm around defending against an elephant rush.

I am not surprised that you aren't generally an Ulm player, Xietor. You don't seem to think like an Ulm player, hehe (some people would take that as a compliment). Criticisms of Ulm really are valid, Ulm has weaknesses, and if you are concerned about them, the best way to avoid them is to not play Ulm, lol.

Arcosephale and Caelum pose big problems for Ulm, so why not play Arcosephale or Caelum instead?

When I pick a faction, I do so because I am excited about something, some strength they have, not because I'd like to minimize a weakness they have.

I look at Ulm and see, wow, they are the best forge race in the game, how can you max that out to full effect? And I might get stomped by elephants. But that is life.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Actually my goal is now to play every single ma race. I played MA Pangaea for years(going back to dom II), and they certainly are not one of the elite mp races. I just like their theme.

But I am now playing pythium and arcos for the 1st time, and in future mp games will play every MA race I have yet to play.

So far in mp I have won mp games with Shinuyama, Pangaea, and did very well in the Big Game with Ctis that ended due to unit limit being reached. I owned 7 capitals at that time and likely was about 4th or so in power rankings.

So I have done pretty well with the nonelite ma MP races. Time will tell how I do with pythium and Arcos. Eventually I will get around to playing Ulm, but I am in no rush.

When I do, however, I will have an awake size 6 pretender who is not vulnerable to solar rays.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

i vote for a Prince of Death expanded into at least one other path of magic, either nature or astral. Here is why.

1) You can expand almost right away using it. And from my experience it takes a couple turns longer to really start expanding with a nation that relies on production. It needs that boost from the pretender.

2) After you have a fast enough expansion using knights, you can use the pretender as a site searcher, to expand into the addiontal paths.

3) In order to best make use of ulms forging abiliity, you need chasis' to to put the items on. Death provides the best summons for that. In particular with ulms heavy earth forging, you can put heavy encumbrance items on undead. Earth forging isn't as good for thugs that get fatigued.

4)Elephants don't like princes of death.


The only problem with this is a prince of death is very unthemetic for ulm. Ulm breaks away from Ermor to follow an anti magic, anti sacred, anti everything, cult, and then worships a prince of death? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Did you not just play Ulm in Fallacy Sir_Dr_D? And were they not one of the 1st races to die? That is not a slight to you, you are a good player. But in every single MP game I have been in with Ulm present, they were either the 1st to die, or very close to it.

Have yet to see MA Ulm make it to middle game in any MP game I have played in.

A funny memory i have in the Big Game was talking early to some of the players i knew to see if any of them were close to me, and several said they had their scout out looking for MA Ulm. It was like a winning lottery ticket to start out near MA Ulm. If memory serves Frank Trollman(LA Atlantis) found them 1st and they definitely were the 1st of the 65 races to die.

When the perception exists in the mp community that a race is weak early, then you can expect an early attack.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I was the first to die in that game, for more reasons then just playing Ulm. I hadn't practiced that nation enough. In that game I tried to expand too fast, and ended up dying against indies. The ulm infantry weren't as invinsible as i thought. Even with production three I could not build troops fast enough to take most indies. Which is why I am saying now that an awake pretender is important. In that game I did have a cyclops, but I messed it up. Another mistake I made is I should have been expanding using knights not ifantry. The knights can expand significantly faster then the infantry.

But I agree that in order to win as ulm, you need to get lucky. You could face off an elephant rush as ulm for example, as long all that is the force is elepants. If you need to face elephants backed by mages,elephants made ethereal, or awake pretenders as well, you don't stand much chance. I see this thread as, how you can do as much damage as possible as ulm before dying.

In the game I had to face Shinuyama. Shinuayama, has a lot of powerfull low resource troops. Because they are low resource, Shinuyama can expand much faster. And because their troops are all high strength, ulms armor doesn't help much. I have also found it slow to reasearch as ulm. You need to build a lot of castles before you get going on research. Which means in the early game, anyone you face will likely have higher magic then you. Even if I didn't make those mistakes in the game, I don't think I would have stood much of a chance.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I tried this out to see how it worked.

Team Arco:

25 elephants : 2500 gold
20 hypaspists : 300 gold
5 mystics : 900 gold
total : 3700 gold

Elephants and hypaspists in one large group, all the way forward. Mystics scripted to mind burn X5

Team Ulm:
12 Master smiths: 1680 gold
90 chainmail + battleaxe infantry = 900 gold
16 arbalests (had them sitting around from initial expansion) = 160 gold
40 PD = 820 gold
total : 3560

Infantry set just back and flanking PD on each side.
All smiths set to magma bolt X2, bonds of fire X3

Round 1: Magma bolts & arbalests kill 4 elephants and severely damage many more as they charge across the open ground. A couple Ulmish infantry popped by mind burn.

Round 2: Several more elephants dropped by magma bolts and over half of them are at least down to 2/3rds HP, elephants hit PD and cause minor damage having used most of their movement to close so only a little trampling.

Round 3: About a third of the remaining elephants are trapped by bonds of fire and another third killed by the infantry (many of the elephants were quite low on HP from the magma bolts). Arco breaks, but most of the elephants are trapped by bonds of fire and killed by the advancing infantry.

Final tally (excluding PD deaths):
20 elephants killed (the 5 that got away were badly afflicted)
6 hypaspists killed
0 astrologers killed

14 Ulmish infantry killed


So, there's a fairly concrete response to those who claim Ulm has no chance against elephants. This is a simple case and I'd expect the Arco player to pull a trick or two, but it's clearly not impossible for Ulm to win.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Good analysis Baalz. Give Ulm a try.

But Arcos will use astrologers, not mystics. And by the time Ulm has magma bolts, arcos will have soul slay.

Other issue is Ulm is not likely to get that build up if it faces an awake dragon raiding its lands, while its pretender is asleep, or is a 10 hp arch mage. The dragon may just be sitting on Ulm's capital on turn 3 or 4 and how do you get it off with a sleeping pretender and infantry?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Baalz: Ha ha ha!

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

If you take, as suggested, an awake rainbow pretender and spend the first several turns researching you hit bonds of fire and magma bolts very quickly, and soul slay isn't really much better than mind burn against Ulmish infantry - I don't think that would have made any difference at all. I actually did use astrologers in the test, just mistyped.

As to the dragon, that's really kind of a different question, we were talking about elephants. A dragon sitting on your cap on turn 4 is quite a different ball of wax and is a challenge for many nations outside of whatever is following it up. Lets give this a try though...you've got an awake rainbow mage and in a total surprise a dom-10 dragon plops down and takes out all the PD in your capital on turn 4. I'll go ahead and make some assumptions: you've got a 4 strength dominion on your cap (you've had a pretender sitting there plus a temple plus the capital spread for 4 turns), you've got 3 master smiths, and you've got one expansion army with an arbalest squad outside your capital as well as a handful of infantry, you've also been researching thaumaturgy to pick up bonds of fire.

Depending on what the research actually is on your pretender, stall for a turn or two until you hit thaum-2. In the mean time your expansion army grabs a few more provinces (make sure you cut off all retreat routes for the dragon) and you try to find barbarians, or lizards, or any low resource/high damage indies to recruit (bonus, you'll probably take them easily with your arbalests) or mercenaries. A couple turns after the dragon appeared you attack with whatever you've been able to scrape up - which obviously will vary quite a bit, but you open the fight with your pretender cursing the dragon then casting berserkers a couple times on your biggest weapon carrying dudes, while your three smiths spam bonds of fire. Your prophet casts a bunch of sermons of courage and your expansion forces probably have a star or two so they've got fairly good moral and can hopefully take a swing or two despite the awe even without the berserk. The dragon is in significant enemy dominion with the accompanying penalties, is held for awhile with no real defense or chance to cause damage or make fear rolls, is cursed, and is being hacked at by berserk battleaxes (dare I hope you had a couple black knights?) who ignore his awe as well as being focussed on by arbalests at presumably short range. After the berserkers you can have your pretender cast frighten X 2. Dragon, taking some damage, is in enemy dominion, hit with 2 15 fear attacks and facing the extra moral check of lone combatants will route and die. Depending on how many arbalests and your actual mix of troops you might do better to skip the berserkers and just do frighten X4.

Now, this set you back a couple turns, but your enemy lost his pretender and you're hardly crippled.

Heck though, seems like the dragon would potentially have trouble just taking out the capital PD. Facing 25 arbalests in enemy dominion...14 AP damage focussed on a single guy with no shield or buffs and ignoring awe...seems like he'd need to win before they reloaded and fired at close range to have a chance.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I think you script the dragon to hold 4 times then attack archers. Your mages would be casting spells that tire themselves out, but the dragon is oor of bonds fire etc.

Meanwhile arcos teleports in 5 astologers to support the dragon and they are casting mind burn the entire time. Assuming also arcos capital is 3 provinces from ulm's as seems to be the case in most mp games with spacing, then the reinfocement elephants should be getting close as well.

Baalz you have excellent ideas, and are a very good player. But the fact remains Ulm in my experience always dies early.
Not every person playing ulm is going to be a hall of fame player.

While it is certainly possible you could put up a good defense against a rush, I have seen proof with my own eyes that most players cannot. And that is why my suggestion to take an awake sc pretender is a good idea for the average player.

And I am using gameextremeists's arcos rush tactics as an example, but he was better than the typical player at rushing with arcos. But he did use an awake dragon to bolster his early rush. And teleporting astrologers in to bolster his forces was another of his common tactics.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Baalz:

Yeah, dragon could have some problems with that PD, though your anti-dragon tactic does not seem viable. Waiting few turns, getting indie reinforcements? His elephant army would be in your capitol by then to reinforce the dragon. Or any other force - he will need army to siege the fort and he will want to do it fast.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Definitely seems like we're changing the rules from step to step here. Is there a worst case scenario where Ulm can't win? Sure. True for everyone. Is Ulm completely doomed without an awake SC pretender? No.

You've now set up a scenario where they have to start within a few provinces of an elephant nation with a flying Monster pretender, who happens to send his starting scout out in the right direction, or accidentally land his dragon on Ulm's capital in a blind jump. (Do people actually attack blind with flying pretenders? Guaranteed death on a retreat and no idea what you're facing?)

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Baalz inspired me to run a test.

Arcoscephale: blue dragon, dom 10.
Ulm: awake rainbow pretender, dom4.

I forgot to appoint prophets. For simplicity sake I didn't move Ulm army out of capital, it was set on Defend anyway.
The dom10 blue dragon attacks 25 Ulm PD at capital on turn 4. Orders are 'attack rear'. (Perhaps I could do better, I never did such things before)
All arbalests miss.
The blue dragon attacks and hits the melee infantry group. Arbalests don't fire, they walk forward and engage the dragon in melee.
Halberds and pikes deal some damage. Arbalests fire again.
The Dragon retreats into enemy territory and dies. This was on the first try, I didn't do any more tests. I could've backed up the turn files, I guess.

Moral of the story: beating 25 Ulm PD is not trivial for a dom10 blue dragon. It's a gamble.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Right, exactly my point. A SC pretender is a perfectly fine choice, my point is Ulm is viable without one. I will take issue though with the fact that I suggested a strategy based on scraping up what I can on turn 4 worst case scenario and now its morphed into astrologers teleporting in (a thaum-3 spell...while having no pretender to research) and elephants on top of the dragon by turn 6. That storm is a bit too perfect I think, and I don't think a SC pretender is going to help too much if the deck is so stacked against you.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I guess my MP experience is a small sample, but Ulm is typically the 1st to die in every game i have played. Shrug.

Why is that if they are so good?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

No arguments that they are a bit trickier to play than most nations. A newbie can pick up Arco and be stomping around with elephants and doing a reasonable job pretty quickly. A slightly more experience guy can figure out to take a W/F bless and put up some impressive numbers with Vanheim. Ulm doesn't have a quick and easy strength, and it's also got some fairly obvious weaknesses which require subtlety to compensate for. I don't think I'd classify myself as a hall of fame player, but I do think most players tend to miss the more subtle strengths of nations. If you just try and march out with your strongest Ulmish troops like you would with elephants or dual blessed Vans you're gonna get horribly spanked - no argument. Same for Atlantis. Same for Eriu. Same for Marverni. Same for several more nations. Successfully playing these nations requires a different type of gameplay and it's not nearly as obvious. That would be my guess as to why these nations generally do pretty poorly though I don't personally feel like they're underpowered.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Arcos is not easy to play In fact MA Arcos has never won a mp game according to the hall of fame kept by Tyrant. They may be a strong starter, but elephants become obsolete by midgame, and Arcos has no castle bought troops that are worth buying in the midgame.

Arcos has terrible national summons, and there are few good s summons.

Now I will admit, mind hunt can be a killer to the handful of MA Nations that do not have s mages. But the vast majority of MA Nations have s mages, so are immune to mind hunt if played smartly.

But I do not want to hijack the Ulm thread. However, I do take exception to arcos being a "easy race to win with."
It takes planning to survive the mid and late game with arcos, and that planning needs to occur before the game begins.

You cannot win a mp game against good players just by stomping around with elephants. In fact, in both games I played with gameextremeist, he got off to great starts, but did not end up winning those games(though he made sure some other races did not win them either before he went down).

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I think Ulm dies mostly because they can't rush. If you find Ulm, you know that they'll have lots of arbalests, but no sacred troops, no stealthy units, you know what mages they have (E2F1) and you know their troops and armies will both move slowly.

Ulm's trick isn't as good as some other nations' tricks, but more importantly, they have just one trick. Your pretender has to provide another. SC pretender can easily do it, but I think a rainbow's research could also work, if you knew what you were doing.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

I did not mean to disparage Arco as being easy to play, but I do think Arco is one of the stronger nations if played right. I was referring to the opening turns in response to your question about why Ulm doesn't tend to last very long. Coincidentally enough the game I tied for second as Ulm in was won by MA Arcoscephale, guess it didn't get added to the hall of fame.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Coincidentally, being second in a game means exactly nothing. If you are Ulm,
and start next to my Pythium, you can be second by just saying "I'll be your
forge *****, no need for your big bad Lord of Fertily to fertilize me". There
is one spot that matters in Dominions. And it is not number two.

By the way, your Arco example was messed up big time. I call shenanigans. I ran
it myself, except that I forgot to assume that the Arco player is playing to
lose. I still kept your assumption that his lab burned on turn four, and kept on
burning so that he could not even research Body Ethereal. Hey, it is possible,
and more likely that MA Ulm putting up a fight that does not involve grabbing
its own knees.

First, allow me to note that my arco army was ready on turn 6, seven turns before
Ulm was, and that the elephants were used in conquest, as opposed to the
battleaxe infantry that is about the worst choice against indies. So I send them
to visit Ulm's capital, as opposed to make Ulm's troops actually move, for which
we know they are particularly unsuited. Of course, your scenario also assumed
that. It is not as if Ulm would have a chance if their smiths had to chase Arco
around as if it collected lands that did not happen to have PD 40.

Then, I actually bothered positioning and scripting Arco's forces. I did not
replace the hypaspists with something more useful for my tactics, but I still
placed 10 of them in such a way that they will draw the PD's attention, and I
ordered them to guard a commander in the upper right corner. Now if the Arco
player had a clue, these would be hoplites - heavier armour, cheaper, and mobing
slowlier, all of which are pluses in this case.

Remember, kids. PD is stupid, and cannot be scripted, so you can abuse it any
way you want. You know how fast it moves, and you know it will go for the
closest target. Thus, I positioned 10 of my elephants so that they would come
up on the infantry slowly chasing the hyps from below, and wipe them out on
contact. Using hold and attack closest, I made sure it happened as far away from
the front as possible.

The rest of the hyps and elephants were on guard commander in the bottom
rear corner. My commanders (mages which I was using as grunts, because I needed
grunts for this retarded army composition)

What happened: PD fired at the shielded infantry, and killed one, which was
lucky. Because I did not want to play unfairly, the real arbalesters were
scripted at fire large monsters. Because I did not want to lose, I did not
have elephants anywhere but in the corners, so they missed. The poor smiths,
not having any targets, proceeded to waste fatigue.

Turn 2 some arbalests fired. They did nothing. The smiths wasted some fatigue.

Turn 3 some arbalests fired, don't ask me to explain how. A smith burned a hyp.

Turn 4 lotsa arbalests fired. Two hyps died, three elephants were scratched.
Some of the pd stopped chasing my commanders' bodygaurds, and tickled some
elephants. The elephants hit the PD, killed half, and failed to rout the rest.

Turn 5 the unrouted PD keeps chasing the hyps. The 10 elephants killed
practically all of them. Some arbalests fired in that melee, to no effect. The
smiths are still firing from way too far away, doing zip.

Turn 6, my bottom row commander retreats, his bodyguards (10 hyps, 15 elephants)
attack. The 10 elephants from the top row waste time finishing off the remaining
PD. The smiths are falling asleep.

Turn 7, the PD arbalesters nail the bottom rear commander as they shoot at his
bodyguards (6 of them remain, and are still drawing fire) The commanders dead,
the bodyguards attack.

Turn 9, the 10 elephants hit the chainmail infantry. Bad luck, they barely reach
them.

Turn 11, the 3 remaining elephants rout. The infantry is nearly halved. The 15
elephants, having outdistanced the 10 hyps hit the PD arbalesters, without
having suffered any damage. The real albalesters are shooting at the melee on
the top row. At this point, Arco has three commanders left, huddling behind the
10 hyps. I am getting scared the battleaxe infantry will hit them from behind
and rout Arco.

Turn 12, the 6 bodyguards on the top row rout 30 of Ulm's infantry. The 15
elephants in Ulm's rear wipe out the arbalesters, PD or not. Ulm routs.
Too damn many smiths wave woken up, shame.

Result: disaster for Ulm. Arco loses 8 elephants, and 7 infantry. They also
lose 3 mages, which would have fared better, had they been grunt commanders.
only 6 smiths die. Could have been better.

Now, as homework, please run the same scenario with body ethereal and luck
tossed in, and with the right kind of infantry and commanders for Arco.
Or use Caelum, and Arrow Fend... Or toss in the SC that my Caelum always had.

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

So, newbie question (although I do like MA Ulm)--

What are the theoritical counters to some of the above situations? Besides, obviously, playing MA Arco yourself--are awake size 6 SCs (or playing a bless or elephant country) the only options?

Re: MA Ulm Pretender
 

Awake size 6 sc pretender. For starters, his presence may make someone else appear to be an easier target. 2nd. Father of winters with early alt3/ench 2 buffs and some constr 0 armor is a terror.