[MezMerrick]

Thanks for all the advice. No, the last time his Ulm trounced me was end-game, with numbers in the 600-700's. I was Abysia and despite burning over a 1/4 of his army down and sending almost a 100 of those bat flying things to his rear I was still trounced (of course him picking up Elephants in one of his conquered countries didn't help me much). I expect by the endgame of this one he will have stolen someones elephants again, confounding the problem even more. Still, I'm going to implement your strat recommendations and see where this goes.