Well because Sly Frog seems to be having a little bit of a hard time finding help with Base (Yes?) Ulm, I have a few suggestions some of which may be helpful, some may not be plausible in your current or future games and some have been mentioned but I just want to list everything that I have had success with while playing Ulm:

1.) Spies. Spies provide a distractionary force as well a gold cutter. How I use them is by placing one on nearby provinces and any province that has a castle or indep capability use a dogpile of Spies to jump the Unrest immediately to 200. Usually 8 will do. Then stealth away to a nearby province either making my opponent use money for PD or near a magical attack squad so their 'retreat' orders won't leave them stranded or dead.

2.) Master Smiths. These fellows have a variety of uses. I will list a few of the common tactics with them.

• Combat Support Mages: Focus on Earthquake, Blade Wind, Destruction, Magma Eruption, Magma Bolts, Earth Meld, Strength of Giants, Legion of Steel, Weapons of Sharpness etc
• Forging Ability: Contrary to the previous posters in this thread, I have always found Black Knight Commanders properly equipped to be much more of a flanking force than the Black Knight units. Equipped with the right weapons, they can beat other mini-combatants and situational casters (Wrath for example). Also I tend to make alot of Bane Lord/Firbolgs with the proper equipment that in the proper numbers will defeat most other single SC's and armies
• Combat Mages: Give your Smiths a decent forged weapon and a pair of winged boots scripted with: Summon Earthpower, Invulnerability, Fire Shield, then attack. They can turn the tide of a battle especialy in masse.

3.) Everyone knows that Base Ulm has a weakness with morale. Counter that base priest morale with items, easy items to use are Horns of Valor, Herald Lances.

4.) The often underestimated Siege units. If/when the Lord Guardian gets a significant Castle Defense bonus (akin to the Siege Engineer) you can use take and hold measures. As it is right now you can use Guardians and Sappers to fortify and create large mass pushes against castle fronts. Usually 10-20 Sappers (Which I find better than Art's) is enough to drop a Castle Wall near instantly.

5.) Forge of the Ancients. The Most important Ulm spell there is. Even if all you get is one turn of this spell it drops the price of gems so low, you can create a huge stockpile of equipment for equipping waiting or on the way SC's to fill the gaps of your normal army.

6.) Your Normal Army with the aid of Support Magics should be able to take on most other normal armies, sans high strength. Even then, with Strength of the Giants, Marble Warriors and Legion of Steel they create a harsh buffer or body wall. As long as you are able to protect a good portion of them from mass battlefield spells (Wrath, Firestorm, etc) with quick reaction teams/squads (Spring Hawks, Flying Commanders, etc) it will force your opponent to engage it otherwise he will lose a good portion of income/land. As long as you know and are prepared for this, you can weigh the battle to your side.

7.) Independants are more important to Ulm than some other nations. But you will always have a chance to get Independants. Whether from Sites or from base Province type you will always have at least one province with a mage with different paths. It is important to take advantage of these as soon as possible.

8.) The pretender design for Ulm is the key component. If you're unable to fill the gaps in the magical diversity of Ulm with a Pretender then you've already lost the game since there is only so much you can do with a single 1F2E mage.

9.) Scout Blood Hunting for Ulm is still valid. While not as good as it was it still can represent a large factor in Ulm's strategy.