[Mightypeon]

;P
Well, I have a total experience of one finished and 3 running mulitplayer games, and I am only playing MA Ulm in one of those. I thus felt an uncharacteristic need to write "imho" a lot.

There are also some another new option with an awake research Rainbow Pretender, a very early move to the Forges of Ulm.
One needs to clear conjuration 3, construction 4 and likely evocation 3 before turn 16. This is possible while still sitesearching a fair bit with the research pretender. If pulled out succesfully, Ulm can get early Banes/Sleepers with Flame Sword + Shield of gold + Some armour for 4 Death, 1 Earth and 2 Fire gems. If you got an early S random (chances are 7% per smith, so in turn 16 there is an ok chance to have gotten one), one can add cheap luck and antimagic amulets. With more luck, there are also Fly boots for I think 3 gems.
If one has multiple of those before turn 20, one can indeed pull out a very strong attack.
However, it is not assured that one finds Fire, Astral and Death/Nature income. While trading can alliviate some of these troubles, one is by no means guaranteed to have a "Bane factory" in turn 20.
One should also not that Outfitting those Banes requires between 2-6 Mages forging, meaning that Mages, not gems, may be the actual bottleneck.
One can also thug out Priest Smiths, this will require an N4 bless and Alteration 2 for stone skin.
Thugging out Black priests does not work.
Thugging out Black Knights is possible, but one must stay cheap, and it is difficult to get the "critical mass" the would need to be effective (after all, the bottleneck is Mage turns, and recruiting Black Knights cuts into the number of mages one can recruit).