Quote:
Originally Posted by licker
Ulm cannot get boots of flying without their pretender, or willing trading partners (which cuts both ways for any strategy) and adds an additional 10 air gems (9 or 6 with boni) to the cost of equipping your thugs.
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I will agree that using Winged Shoes does increase costs of thugs.
But I have to absolutely disagree 100% that LA Ulm can't get the Shoes without their pretender. You have national mages that at least get 1 Air. If you can't get one of the Mercenary Air mages, then you at least have someone that can manually search some mountains until you are getting a few a turn. (and there is -always- significant chance of a crosspath site, Singing Stones, anyone?) From there it's a short matter of time before you can empower someone to A2, and you should be able to find your way from there.
Diversifying rarely has to be as hard as "use your pretender". If you can get even a random pick in a path, it's not that hard to gear into it. LA Ulm will never be an Air power, but they have no excuse at all to go without.