I got beaten when I first tried EA Ulm in MP, so take me with a grain of salt. But as I thought out and tested some more after this, it can still be of some value.
Their sacreds are good enough, but too costly & capital only with move 1. So the only bless I would now seriously consider is Earth - for their mages! A pity Smiths aren't sacred...
An awakened SC isn't really necessary I think - their national troops are pretty good for early expansion and in the game I mentioned I succeeded in beating my closest neighbor before researching anything good. So good scales would be good indeed - which means that the only awakened SC I would consider is Dom 9 Wyrm with Earth 4 & good scales.
Another possibility is to try to increase their already formidable Forging with Forge Lord. Imprisoned I have found out to be too late, so I now think that Dormant with average dominion would work better.
Otherwise we could synergize with Forging by having either a gem-producing Pretender or a Great Sage. My testing have shown that Awakened Sage with Drain & otherwise good scale allows a good enough research together with access to other paths...