Mid Game - Newb in Need

[OG_Gleep]

Ok, I have read all the newb guides, done the tutorial (thanks for that btw), and have a semi firm grip on the basics.

Most guides cover this portion of the game fairly well, but I haven't found anything covering mid game strategy.

Any general tips and suggestions would be welcome, but I have a few specific questions for the veterans of the game.

1. Having a steady ecomomy with surpluss enough to continually pump out leader class units, what is the best strategy here? I was pumping out priests and Smiths of Ulm, and other non-combat leaders from indipendants, and was getting overwealmed. Anyone have any tips or guildines on this? Is there a system to the madness? Should I setup provinces that are devoted to research, and provinces devoted to item production?

2. Priests - What is the best way to utilize them? Should they command troops with every army? Should I make enough to have one praying in every province? With Ulm atleast, they are cheap enough that I can make one in every province with a temple, every turn.

3. Magic is still a mystery to me. I have different magic types searching the land, but as Ulm, I primarily use only their melee oriented commanders to lead the armies. Any strategies here on how to utilize them. Not only that, but any tips in general on how to maximize efficency and potency when using Ulm?

4. Castles - What is the best guidlines to use when setting up a network? What kind of situations should I look for in determining a site? What situations should I avoid? This is assuming I have expanded and have a thriving economy and such. Is it wise to build a network of forts on the front line for defense and rely on my inner provences to recruit sodiers from?
Also, I had a couple of forts having 200 + resources, my home one had almost 300, even with a castle discovered in one right next to it (a site), and my next one I built was stuck at 62, even though no other castles were closer then 3 provinces away.

5. Armies - Can anyone give an example, playing as Ulm, what their favorite Army Groups looked like....especially what commanders they used, what squads they assigned to them, and what if any Items or gems they made sure they had. Having only played 2 games so far, I am sure I could be making a more effective Armies.

6. I was planning to start a new game because I chose only 2 AI for a HUGE map. What is an ideal setup for a fun game? You can waste a lot of time before you realize you nerfed the game.


Any other guidlines for managing a established empire would be great.

Are all of these for Ulm or another nation? The problem is the complexity and the variety that can be encountered by midgame, including circumstances.

I'll give you a few generalizations that if you can't think of anything; you can fall back on.

1.) Depending on the situation I constantly produce research/combat casters or scouts in every territory that I deem the caster worthy (any territory that makes one, for scouts). If you have so many commanders, or mages that you don't know what to do with; then you've already more than likely won the game.

2.) Priests depend on what you are doing with them. By and Large it's nice to have more than a few preists. Primary reasons to make/create a priest are 1.) For Blessing and Sermon of Courage (and their betters, Fantatism etc). 2.) Preaching up dominion in a particular province. Most of the time this is preaching out the dominion of an opponent hiding in a castle. Preaching your dominion up for new territory you've just taken. Countering high dominion of non-aggression enemies or those with disruptive dominion (heat/cold/ermorian (carrion wood) death). 3.) Fight undead

3.) Ulm has access to earth. Look along the various magic schools for good Earth spells. Construction holds quite a few good ones as well as Conjuration (for gem using spells). Magic is something that you best discover on your own and is one of the fun aspects of the game. As a side note, Ulm does very well with Blood.

4.) Castles should be built to either defend key points, or for the creation of more units. I don't have a set pattern here, except for frequency. This is usually determined by what castle type you pick when you play. Most of the time if I plan on building a plethora of castles (to fit the nation/style I'm playing) I'll choose a Wizard's Tower.

5.) This really depends. Cavalry on flanks near the front. Archers/xbow behind a strong center. Usually a rear-guard or a few units to distract 'attack rear' or fliers away from commanders.

It' all really depends. Later in the game most of my turns (outside of finding scouts) are comprised of adjusting my forces placement and commands based on new information, attacking/defending a particular threat/province, or exploiting the AI's weakness of placement.

It's best to watch your replays to see how and why people/nations attack you and how to try to gauge and take advantage of their tactics and use them against them.

6.) My personal preference and suggestion is in the beginning you should try to make the game hard yet not too hard to beat, this makes in my mind for a more satisfying game, others might object or want to always 'win' but I don't feel you learn as much about the game that way. I'd say 2 or 3 under the 'maximum' setting of a map. This should give you a little breathing room; but you'll more than likely be embroiled into a conflict sooner than you are 'ready' forcing you to think more or try things without having things 'exactly' how you want them.

[ January 12, 2004, 08:41: Message edited by: Zen ]

[PDF]

1. Having a steady ecomomy with surpluss enough to continually pump out leader class units, what is the best strategy here? I was pumping out priests and Smiths of Ulm, and other non-combat leaders from indipendants, and was getting overwealmed. Anyone have any tips or guildines on this? Is there a system to the madness? Should I setup provinces that are devoted to research, and provinces devoted to item production?

Don't build leaders just to fill the queues, build them to do stg :
Scouts/Spies => info gathering, instill unrest (for Ulm spies)
Smiths (mages more generally) => research, item constructions, rituals, accompany armies for support
Other => lead troops, you should have at least 20-30 troops per leader, troopless leaders (except very powerful ones) are rather useless. Overall indy commanders suck/are weaker than Ulm commanders anyway

2. Priests - What is the best way to utilize them? Should they command troops with every army? Should I make enough to have one praying in every province? With Ulm atleast, they are cheap enough that I can make one in every province with a temple, every turn.

Ulmish priests are crappy...level 2 priest only.
Their prayers can't increase much your dominions, Ulm has no sacred troops to bless, and they aren't good as support...
Make only a few of them, make them build temples and "counterpray" on border territories, possibly use them as support vs undead enemies.If you can manage to find good indy priests (amazons, druids..) use these rather than your own.

3. Magic is still a mystery to me. I have different magic types searching the land, but as Ulm, I primarily use only their melee oriented commanders to lead the armies. Any strategies here on how to utilize them. Not only that, but any tips in general on how to maximize efficency and potency when using Ulm?

Ulm is very straightforward in magic : its main magic strength is CONSTRUCTION : pump all your resarch on that, then built Earth boots when you have Cons2, then your Smiths have Earth3, so they can build a couple Dwarven Hammers to have a 50% gem cost reduction for all items.
Also on Cons5 you get the nice CW Horror summons, on Cons6 you can build Fire Lanterns for Research boost, etc...
Apart from that Evocation has nice offensive spells (Blade Wind...) and Enchantment has cool "buffs" too - get at least level 3 quickly in these. After that call's yours

4. Castles - What is the best guidlines to use when setting up a network? What kind of situations should I look for in determining a site? What situations should I avoid? This is assuming I have expanded and have a thriving economy and such. Is it wise to build a network of forts on the front line for defense and rely on my inner provences to recruit sodiers from?
Also, I had a couple of forts having 200 + resources, my home one had almost 300, even with a castle discovered in one right next to it (a site), and my next one I built was stuck at 62, even though no other castles were closer then 3 provinces away.

Your castles should be located either :
* in a defensive position to deny easy conquest by enemy
* and/or in a resource rich province with rich neighbors you control : a castle allows for adding its Admin% of all the neighboring provinces resource.
That's surely why you get 200+resources in one case and only 60 in another- it was put on a poor province...

5. Armies - Can anyone give an example, playing as Ulm, what their favorite Army Groups looked like....especially what commanders they used, what squads they assigned to them, and what if any Items or gems they made sure they had. Having only played 2 games so far, I am sure I could be making a more effective Armies.

Well, at least I can tell you how I organize my Ulmish armies ! My Groups are of 20-30 units if possible.
Basic :
Ulmish Commander + "light" Pikeneers (those in chaimail) + some Guardians (for morale boost)
This group deals with light enemies (indies), and can soften any other (first strike)
Ulmish Commander + "heavy" Axemen (plate) + some Guardians
This guys wreak havoc on heavies...
Support
Commander + Crossbowmen . The crossbowman should be put on a wing, so they don't kill too much your own troops...
Indy Cdr+Archers/longbowmen . Can be useful and is resource cheap
Black Knight wing - 10-12 of them, on a wing, set to strike rear, can do tremendous damage, but are soooo expensive ...
Add a couple Smiths w/bodyguards (any Inf)
That's it for a start! Then you get summons, it's a different story
Items : there's so much of them ...some nice early combat items : Elem Armor, Charcoal Shield, Fire sword , Bracers of defense. For Smiths you have Earth Boots and the girdle that reinvigorates (don't remember the name)

6. I was planning to start a new game because I chose only 2 AI for a HUGE map. What is an ideal setup for a fun game? You can waste a lot of time before you realize you nerfed the game.

Try a 80-100 provinces map, with 10-12 provinces per nation (so 7-9 players). Those games are nice : 20 turns inital expansion, then nations start to clash with just "a little" magic support, by turn 40 the war is in full swing ...

And you know, I kind'a like Ulm too ...

[ January 12, 2004, 12:08: Message edited by: PDF ]

[Arralen]

[quote]Originally posted by PDF:

[qb]
4. Castles - What is the best guidlines to use when setting up a network? What kind of situations should I look for in determining a site? What situations should I avoid? .. Is it wise to build a network of forts on the front line for defense and rely on my inner provences to recruit sodiers from?

Your castles should be located either :
* in a defensive position to deny easy conquest by enemy
* and/or in a resource rich province with rich neighbors you control : a castle allows for adding its Admin% of all the neighboring provinces resource.
That's surely why you get 200+resources in one case and only 60 in another- it was put on a poor province...

Not quite completely answered:

A province without a castle gives you only 1/2 ressource value. THAT's why you have very high ressource values in some provinces and not in others.

So basically a castle is a location where you'll levy most of your troops.

It's pretty obvious that there are 4 reasons to build a castle:

- to use a high ress.-Province (esp. with likely provinces adjacent) to build lots of ressource- heavy, nation-specific troops

- to boost the ressource-value of a province with some urgendly needed troop-type

- to protect temples/labs (e.g. at a special site that gives mages) from flying or stealthy raiding parties

- to block bottlenecks on the map

A.

[apoger]

>5. Armies - Can anyone give an example, playing as Ulm, what their favorite Army Groups looked like....

Front: Blocks of HI. From capital, Guardians. From other forts, either Pikeneer or Battleaxe (pro-15 Version). Pike for light enemies, axe for armored enemies. Sometimes a block of Black Knights if I anticipate having to block size-3 tramplers like Minotaurs or Shambler Thralls.

Behind: Missile troops from independent conquests. Anything I can get that can be produced in bulk. Shortbow, longbow, crossbow, it's all good.

Add: Master Smiths, casting Summon Earth Power, Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants. Sometimes Blade Wind, Magma Eruption, or Earth Meld.


That's Ulm 101, and it's pretty good.

[OG_Gleep]

Thanks a bunch guys. These tips really helped.

PDF - I hadn't thought about having 1 squad per commander. I guess that would make more sense, if you lose the only commander, its game over.


Do you guys send commanders in to fight? I had sent my god in at the start of the game. I picked a Maticore. Awesome combat machine, but now he has like 5 battle afflictions. That and he has about 100 times the HP of my commanders. Seems like a big gamble sending them in.


One more question: Are there any favorite item combos that you guys have? I noticed that some items have weaknesses that can be negated by other items. Was wondering if there are any uber combos.

General Example: Armor (Awesome protection, but spikes fatigue) + Bracer (Eliminates Fatigue)

There are ways to get rid of afflictions on your Manticore.

1. Keeping him from getting them! The best and simplist way is to not get hit (High Protection, Defense, Spells). The second is Regeneration. You are less likely to recieve an affliction when regenerating.

2. Gift of Health (for you, but note some other nation/themes have some other options). This is a Nature spell at Enchantment 5.

3. Magic Artifact, the Chalice. Hard to get, but it will take away afflictions.

4. Kill your God and Call him back. He'll be less powerful magically (-1 to all magic paths) but he will come back fresh as a daisy (sometimes he'll have a minor affliction, but most of the time he'll be all good)

As for commanders, I usually will not have a commander who is commanding a squad fight, unless he is qualified as a 'super combatant'. Because if your commander dies you won't be able to command them unless you have one who can command the men in his place. Though if you have replacements, you can do so without fear.

This is not the case with the "Super Combatant". These usually have alot of survivability and are pretty well protected, though they may rout or die too so don't think they are invulnerable . Most supercombatants are Pretenders and Summoned creatures.

With Ulm your magical 'combos' are pretty limited. For casting spells these are some of the better.

(As Alex noted) Summon Earthpower, Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants. Blade Wind, Magma Eruption, Earth Meld, Weapons of Sharpness

For items. There are so many it's hard to say unless you are asking what type of 'supercombatant' you are trying to equip. I wouldn't equip any normal commander with anything except maybe a Horn of Valor (to combat some of Ulm's Morale issues).

Edit: Changed the commander routing portion.

[ January 14, 2004, 06:10: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Zen:
As for commanders, I usually will not have a commander who is commanding a squad fight, unless he is qualified as a 'super combatant'. Because if your commander routs (fails a morale check by getting hit or feared) or dies everyone under their command will rout.

I don't think that this is true. Routing is only forced from commander death if you have no commanders on the field whatsoever, so a mage with a leadership of 10 can keep 2000 troops from autorouting.

Edit: Graeme is correct. Your army will only autorout if there are no commanders on the battlefield. I don't know if there is any negative penalty for being leaderless, it doesn't seem to have an effect.

[ January 14, 2004, 05:34: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Others have answered the essential points. I'll add just one more tip:

It may not seem obvious, but don't neglect Blood Magic with Ulm. Empower a Smith in blood (up to blood 3). Forge Blood Stones and give them to your support mages so they can cast (with Earth Boots and Summon Earthpower) level 5 battle spells like Weapons of Sharpness (these mages can also Petrify/paralyze things with ease).

Don't lose time binding Demon Knights or Devils with that mage, though Hordes from Hell may be OK. Otherwise have him do what he's best for: a Lifelong Protections for 10 slaves, or a Soul Contract for 40 (pays for itself in 6 turns) are quite a bargain. And if you want that Father Illearth, it's unlikely someone will beat you to it - your competitors will rather race for Ice Devils.